GILBERT  CANNAN 


PINK    ROSES 

GILBERT  CANNAN 


BY   GILBERT  CANNAN 

PINK  ROSES 

MUMMERY 

THE  STUCCO  HOUSE 

MENDEL 

THREE  SONS  AND  A  MOTHER 

SATIRE 

NEW  YORK 
GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


PINK  ROSES 


AUTHOR  OF  "MUMMERY."  'THE  STUCCO  HOUSE, 
"THREE  SONS  AND  A  MOTHER."  ETC. 


NEW  XBJr  YORK 
GEORGE  H.   DORAN   COMPANY 


COPYRIGHT.  1919, 
BY  GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


PRINTED  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  THE  CAFE  CLARIBEL        ....  9 

II.  LAW 20 

III.  CHATEAU  MARGAUX 32 

IV.  HOBDAY,  TREVES  AND  TREVES  ...  48 
V.  RAKE'S  PROGRESS 60 

VI.  LONDON 73 

VII.  RUTH  HOBDAY .90 

VIII.  WESTMINSTER 102 

IX.  ROMANTICISM 114 

X.  SOPHINA 128 

XI.  LESLIE 142 

XII.  THE  SPIRIT  OF  LONDON    .       .       .       .155 

XIII.  PAYING  THE  PRICE 164 

XIV.  BREAKFAST  IN  BED 184 

XV.  BRIGHTON 199 

XVI.  THE  RUSSIAN  FLAVOUR    ....  223 

XVII.  HENRY  HOBDAY  PROTESTS        .       .       .241 

XVIII.  RUTH  AND  TRENHAM       ....  264 

XIX.  PLOTS  AND  PLANS 285 

XX.  TREVOR  AND  LESLIE 300 

XXI.  RUTH  RETURNS 310 

XXII.  THE  PARTY        .......  319 


2134820 


PINK  ROSES 


PINK    ROSES 


THE  CAFE  CLARIBEL 

IN  the  first  place  Trevor  Mathew  went  there  to  avoid  his 
lodgings,  which  had  become  detestable  to  him  since  Harry 
Hardman  and  James  Peto,  his  two  Cambridge  friends, 
had  been  swept  into  the  war.  He  had  been  so  proud  of 
them,  his  rooms  in  Town,  and  they  three  had  had  such 
jolly  times  there  that  when  Hardman  went  off  to  the 
Dardanelles  and  Peto  to  Flanders,  he  had  promised  to 
keep  them  until  they  returned.  It  was  just  his  luck  to 
have  the  medical  officer  discover  a  systolic  murmur  in 
his  heart.  He  had  always  been  out  of  everything.  Per- 
haps his  heart  had  always  played  him  tricks.  Well: 
Harry  was  buried  at  Suvla  Bay  and  Peto  was  smashed 
so  that  he  could  only  lie  stiff,  with  one  eye  glaring  at  the 
ceiling,  one  eye  that  never  slept,  though  its  eyelid  closed 
over  it  occasionally  as  a  matter  of  decency,  and  Trevor 
kept  the  big  living-room  in  the  dingy  street  in  Paddington 
because  he  could  not  bear  to  move  his  friends'  belongings. 
Neither  could  he  invite  others  to  take  their  places,  for 
he  felt  that  they  might  after  all  come  back  when  the  war 
had  proved  to  be  only  an  evil  dream.  Sometimes  he 
felt  so  sure  that  Hardman  would  come  back  that  he  could 
not  bear  it,  and  rushed  out  to  avoid  hearing  his  knock. 
Hardman  wasn't  the  man  to  be  killed :  no  one  could  kill 


io  PINK  ROSES 


him,  so  full  was  he  of  life  and  purpose.  .  .  .  Trevor 
had  seen  Peto  with  his  one  eye  staring,  but  even  that  he 
felt  might  easily  prove  to  be  only  a  nightmare.  It  could 
not  be  true  that  these  things  had  happened  to  his  friends 
while  he  went  on  as  before,  putting  in  his  three  years  as 
an  articled  clerk  in  a  London  solicitor's  office  before  he 
went  home  to  join  his  father's  firm  in  the  North.  The 
Law  had  become  fantastic,  irrelevant  and  derelict.  Per- 
sonal affairs  were  of  no  moment.  The  clients  who  fussed 
about  their  affairs  filled  him  with  disgust.  They  should 
have  been  suspended  because  Hardman  lay  buried  and 
Peto  was  shut  up  in  a  darkened  room  in  a  place  that 
looked  like  a  house,  but  was  really  a  hospital  or  the  mu- 
seum of  a  hospital.  Trevor  was  not  certain  what  anything 
was.  Outwardly  he  was  going  on  with  his  career  as 
though  nothing  had  happened  because  his  heart  mur- 
mured, but  he  had  stopped  as  surely  as  his  friends. 
Nothing  went  on  except  the  war,  and  that  went  on  and 
on.  Nothing  that  happened  in  it  had  any  significance. 
The  war  went  on.  He  ate,  drank,  slept;  visited,  went  to 
the  Law  Courts,  to  consultations  in  Chambers,  to  Somer- 
set House,  Bankruptcy  Buildings,  and  read  the  news- 
papers. He  read  half-a-dozen  newspapers  in  a  day,  the 
same  news,  the  same  imbecile  paragraphs  over  and  over 
again,  but  nothing  had  any  meaning.  Men  died  for  lib- 
erty, but  liberty  disappeared  because  life  as  it  had  been 
planned  and  dreamed  had  died.  He  had  no  personal  life 
left,  no  one  had  any  personal  life,  nobody  wanted  it. 
.  .  .  People  continued  their  occupations  mechanically 
because  they  must,  but  there  was  no  sense  in  them.  The 
war  went  on,  and  there  was  no  sense  in  that  either.  It 
had  become  a  matter  of  words,  names  and  figures  so 
enormous  as  to  be  entirely  unintelligible.  Trevor  felt 


THE  CAFfi  CLARIBEL  n 

that  it  was  no  good  his  trying  to  find  any  meaning  in  it, 
because  he  had  been  left  out  of  it,  left  behind,  and,  as  his 
father  said,  his  duty  was  to  prepare  for  his  final  exam- 
ination, and  for  the  sake  of  the  firm — Mathew,  Gilchrist 
&  Mathew — to  pass  with  as  much  distinction  as  possible. 
It  was  one  thing  to  accept  this  duty,  another  to  carry  it 
out — with  a  murmuring  heart.  It  had  become  altogether 
too  serious  when  the  rest  of  life  had  been  swept  away, 
and  London  had  changed  from  a  pleasant  metropolis  to 
the  nerve-centre  of  the  war,  an  arsenal,  a  recruiting- 
dump,  an  international  head-quarters,  suddenly  Belgian, 
Serbian,  Russian,  Roumanian,  Italian,  anything  and 
everything,  like  a  house-party  with  a  host  so  modest  that 
he  had  withdrawn.  And  the  popular  figures  of  London 
public  life  were  diminished.  They  were  overshadowed 
by  strange  people  from  the  four  corners  of  the  earth  who 
gave  orders  to  the  British  public  as  though  they  were 
Hindus  or  Hottentots,  and  the  British  public  liked  it  and 
obeyed.  .  .  .  Certainly  young  Trevor  Mathew  had  lost 
his  bearings,  and  could  only  follow  the  Law  as  his  father 
and  his  father's  father  had  done  before  him,  but  the  Law 
did  not  interest  him,  and  it  was  only  to  keep  himself 
afloat  that  he  followed  it.  Yet  he  longed  to  drown  as 
his  friends  had  done,  but  that  he  was  not  allowed  to  do 
because  his  heart  murmured.  It  was  ridiculous.  At 
Cambridge  he  had  rowed,  played  tennis,  cricket,  soccer, 
and  had  never  thought  of  his  heart  except  that  he  had 
always  been  bothered  to  know  why  he  could  never  play 
games  as  well  as  he  ought  to  do,  and  why  he  could 
never  get  the  last  ounce  out  of  himself. 

He  was  beginning  to  think  that  he  was  losing  his  sense 
of  humour  when  he  discovered  the  Cafe  Claribel.  First 
of  all  he  discovered  Hyde  Park  on  a  summer  evening. 


12  PINK  ROSES 


He  had  begun  to  loathe  his  lodgings  so  much  that  he 
walked  miles  out  of  his  way  in  the  evening  on  return- 
ing from  the  office  in  London  Wall.  It  gave  him  a 
certain  pleasant  mortification  to  walk  through  the  khaki- 
filled  streets  in  his  antediluvian  costume  of  tail  coat  and 
silk  hat.  He  was  even  pleased  when  old  ladies  asked 
him:  "Why  aren't  you  in  the  Army?"  and  he  an- 
swered by  beginning  to  unbutton  his  waistcoat  and 
pointing  to  the  region  of  his  heart.  Also  it  was  easier 
to  think  his  strange  thoughts  in  the  street  than  in  that 
dreadful  room  that  was  still  full  of  Peto's  theories  and 
Hardman's  laughter.  He  had  thoughts  like :  "  I  am 
already  older  than  my  father  because  the  friends  of  his 
youth  lived  through  it  with  him." 

Thoughts  like  that  are  hardly  bearable,  and  young 
Trevor  when  they  came  liked  to  be  able  to  dart  into  a 
crowd  of  people,  and  he  found  that  the  band  in  the  Park 
tempered  the  pain  of  them  a  little.  It  was  not  a  very 
good  band,  and  the  music  it  played  was  poor  and  exces- 
sively ornate,  but  it  sorted  well  with  the  impossibly  flour- 
ishing flowers  that  had  so  obviously  not  grown  where 
they  were,  and  the  shrubs  brought  in  full  bloom  from 
Kew,  and  the  glimpse  of  the  Serpentine,  which  never 
looks  like  real  water  but  like  real  water  in  a  stage  scene 
when  paint  would  be  more  effective.  .  .  .  Every  now 
and  then  the  tittering  of  a  group  of  girls  would  make 
him  feel  how  out  of  date  he  was,  how  out  of  place  even. 
He  noticed,  too,  that  the  manners  of  such  parades  had 
altered.  The  girls  flaunted  and  strutted.  The  men  in 
khaki  were  wooed,  accosted,  carried  off  in  triumph. 

The  scene  pleased  his  eye.  Human  figures  moving 
under  the  shadow  of  green  trees  in  the  evening  light  had 
the  gracefulness  of  a  dream.  They  were  of  no  time. 


THE  CAFE  CLARIBEL  13 

Whatever  might  be  outside  the  enchantment  of  the  light 
could  not  intrude.  This  was  no  longer  London  in  the 
twentieth  century,  but  a  dream-place  bewitched  into  the 
stillness  of  a  picture.  Even  the  music  was  more  a 
memory  than  a  satisfaction  to  the  senses.  .  .  .  He  was 
so  profoundly  eased  by  this  sudden  experience  that  he 
could  not  tear  himself  away,  although  he  knew  that  he 
was  in  fact  hungry.  Fact,  however,  had  nothing  at  all 
to  do  with  the  experience. 

He  sat  down  in  a  hard  green  garden-chair,  but  with- 
out any  consciousness  of  movement.  It  was  as  though 
the  chair  had  placed  itself  under  him  and  had  lured  him 
into  a  seated  posture.  For  a  few  seconds  he  had  an 
absurd  pleasure  in  thinking  that  he  was  dressed  correctly 
for  the  Park,  and  no  one  else  was  that.  The  world  was 
no  longer  correct.  Its  habits  had  been  broken,  but  he 
remained.  That  was  extremely  uncomfortable,  except 
that  in  perfectly  correct  attire  he  could  watch  the  chang- 
ing scene  and  the  stiff,  numbed  people  moving  under  a 
spell.  It  was  like  looking  through  a  Corot  or  a  Watteau 
into  the  conception  that  made  its  charm.  It  was  like 
— it  was  like  .  .  .  He  was  very  drowsy.  His  eyes 
could  take  in  no  more.  It  was  like — like — pink 
roses  .  .  . 

His  eyes  could  see  nothing  but  pink  roses  now.  The 
figures  of  the  promenade  moved  behind  a  screen  of  pink 
roses.  This  puzzled  him,  and  he  made  an  effort  to  solve 
the  mystery. 

Fifteen  yards  away  from  him  a  girl  was  sitting.  She 
was  dressed  in  a  black  and  white  gown,  and  she  had  a 
charming  little  hat  in  which  were  three  pink  roses.  In 
her  bosom  she  had  a  nosegay  of  fresh  roses.  A  little  frill 
of  lace  fell  from  the  front  of  her  hat  and  from  under 


I4  PINK  ROSES 


this  her  eyes  were  fixed  upon  him.  He  met  them  with 
a  rather  frightened  stare.  Her  left  eyelid  drooped  and 
she  gave  an  inviting  jerk  of  the  head. 

Never  in  his  life  had  Trevor  spoken  to  an  unknown 
lady.  The  girl  with  the  pink  roses  swung  her  foot,  and 
his  eyes  turned  from  her  face  to  that,  and  quite  uncon- 
trollably his  breath  began  to  tickle  his  throat.  He 
coughed,  laughed,  coughed  again.  With  a  sidelong  smile 
at  him  the  girl  rose  and  walked  slowly  away,  and  again 
without  any  consciousness  of  movement  Trevor  rose  and 
followed  her,  taking  his  pace  from  her.  Their  chairs  had 
been  fifteen  yards  apart.  He  kept  exactly  fifteen  yards 
behind  her  as  she  walked  along  under  the  trees.  As 
she  reached  the  arch  at  Hyde  Park  Corner,  she  stopped. 
He  stopped  too,  fifteen  yards  behind  her,  and  stood  gaz- 
ing up  at  the  anti-aircraft  station,  saying  to  himself: 

"  That  is  where  the  searchlight  is." 

When  she  moved  on,  he  moved  also,  although  he  had 
not  seen  her.  He  was  aware  of  pink  roses,  nothing  but 
pink  roses,  and  so,  fifteen  yards  apart,  they  proce.ded 
along  Piccadilly,  across  Piccadilly  Circus,  and  into  the 
Cafe  Claribel. 

The  glare  of  the  lights  reflected  from  the  mirrored 
walls  hurt  his  eyes.  The  air  was  stale  and  smelt  of 
food.  For  a  moment  or  two  he  lost  sight  of  the  pink 
roses,  but  found  them  again  with  a  pang  of  pleasure,  and 
sat  at  a  table  fifteen  yards  away  from  them. 

It  was  the  first  time  in  his  life  that  he  had  done  any- 
thing unaccountable. 

The  Cafe  also  had  its  enchantment.  It  was  quite 
unlike  the  restaurants  he  used  to  frequent  in  the  old  days 
when  the  first  week  of  the  month  used  to  be  devoted  to 
an  elegance  which  the  three  combined  allowances  could 


THE  CAFE  CLARIBEL  15 

not  maintain.  There  was  no  flunkeyism  about  it,  and  it 
lacked  the  wonderful  invisible  machinery  which  pro- 
vided the  delicious  sense  of  being  borne  by  boundless 
wealth  above  life.  Here  the  machinery  of  the  establish- 
ment was  only  too  visible.  The  swing  doors  led  into  the 
kitchens,  from  which  continually  came  the  clatter  of 
utensils  and  the  not  unpleasing  odour  of  skilful  cooking. 
Next  to  the  swing  doors  was  a  bar  caged  in  with  glass. 
The  waiters  were — waiters.  Trevor  was  used  to  dis- 
tinguished ministrants  who  were  unlike  the  guests  only 
in  the  way  they  carried  their  arms.  Here  they  wore 
short  alpaca  jackets  and  wide  aprons  folded  tightly 
round  their  hips,  and  they  hurried  so  that  they  broke 
the  air  of  efficiency  which  all  good  restaurants  possess. 
Frock-coated  maitres  d'hotel  wandered  despairingly 
striving  to  make  good  the  deficiency,  but  in  vain.  But 
for  their  flat  Italian  heads  they  would  have  looked  like 
Sunday-school  superintendents  gloomily  keeping  up  the 
appearance  of  enjoying  a  summer  feast  in  the  country. 

T£te  long  hall  was  crowded.  Every  table  was  filled, 
and  there  were  men  and  women  waiting  for  places  to  be 
vacated.  Trevor  had  a  table  to  himself.  The  waiter 
laid  a  menu  before  him  and  went  away  without  waiting 
for  his  order.  A  negro  in  a  loud  check  suit  came  up 
and  asked  if  he  might  sit  at  his  table.  Trevor  said : 

"Certainly  not." 

The  negro  grinned  shyly  and  went  away.  The 
orchestra  in  a  little  gallery  above  the  bar  began  to  play 
"  La  Boheme,"  and  Trevor,  recovering  some  of  his 
sense  of  reality,  looked  towards  his  lady  of  the  pink 
roses.  She  was  eating  a  steak  and  she  had  a  small  bottle 
of  red  wine  on  her  table.  She  was  older  than  he  had 
thought,  but  he  was  not  disappointed.  She  was  very 


i6  PINK  ROSES 


good-looking,  very  neat,  and  she  had  charming  move- 
ments with  her  shoulders,  a  delightful  alertness  in  her 
glance  as  she  took  in  and  was  amused  by  her  surround- 
ings. Every  now  and  then  she  glanced  towards  him, 
but  he  always  looked  away.  He  did  not  want  to  know 
more  of  her  than  that  first  impression  of  pink  roses. 
That  did  not  fade.  She  still  carried  with  her  something 
of  the  enchantment  of  the  scene  in  the  Park. 

He  ate,  and  the  food  was  good.  He  ordered  a  small 
bottle  of  Sauterne,  and  it  was  capital.  Food  and  drink 
reconciled  him  to  his  surroundings  and  to  the  descent 
from  the  Hardman-Peto  standard  of  dining  out.  After 
coffee  and  liqueur  he  began  to  feel  that  he,  Trevor 
Mathew,  was  being  adventurous,  that  he  was  asserting 
himself,  stepping  out  of  the  routine  ordained  for  young 
gentlemen  with  rich  fathers  who  pass  through  the 
metropolis  on  their  way  to  the  practice  of  an  honourable 
profession.  Hardman  had  passed  out  of  it  into  the 
grave,  Peto  into  that  darkened  room,  and  now  he,  too, 
had  taken  a  plunge  into  the  unknown  and  the  un-English. 
The  table  next  to  him  was  occupied  by  a  Belgian  family 
party.  On  his  left  was  an  Italian  whom  he  guessed  to 
be  attached  to  the  Embassy,  with  a  lady  whose  clothes 
were  so  conspicuously  worn  that  she  was  obviously  at- 
tached to  the  dress-making  trade — a  mannequin?  Two 
officers  in  brilliant  uniforms  sat  behind  him  talking  in 
some  strange  tongue.  Roumanian?  Serbian?  Slovak? 
It  was  a  delightful  game  this  guessing  at  the  histories 
of  unknown  persons.  .  .  .  The  lady  with  the  pink 
roses  smiled  at  him.  He  realized  to  his  horror  that  he 
had  only  just  enough  money  to  pay  his  bill,  and  not 
enough  to  give  the  fussy,  incompetent  waiter  a  proper 
tip. 


THE  CAFE  CLARIBEL  17 

How  friendly  her  smile  was!  How  charming  to  be 
in  sympathy  with  another  human  being  fifteen  yards 
away!  He  did  not  wish  to  be  any  nearer,  nor  did  he 
desire  the  adventure  to  proceed  any  further.  On  the 
other  hand,  he  would  not  have  it  come  to  an  end.  As  it 
was  it  had  in  it  an  exquisite  quality  of  happiness,  of  fulfil- 
ment, of  poignancy — just  a  hint.  He  did  not  require 
more. 

All  his  life  he  had  lived  on  hints  and  had  held  aloof 
fastidiously,  doing  what  was  expected  of  him,  but  never 
consciously  seeking  beneath  the  surface,  or  asking  from 
any  person  or  any  experience  more  than  what  was  imme- 
diately offered.  He  was  charming,  and  was  intensely 
susceptible  to  charm.  His  life  with  his  friends  had  held 
more  than  enough  of  that  for  him,  and  when  they  were 
taken  from  him  he  had  been  dazed  and  almost  paralysed, 
and  had  let  himself  be  absorbed  in  routine  for  the  dura- 
tion of  the  war.  A  future  without  his  friends  seemed 
intolerable,  and  he  had  only  been  able  to  face  it  with 
set  teeth. 

He  stared  rather  stupidly  at  the  lady  with  the  pink 
roses,  and  shook  his  head  with  a  dreamy  smile  of  which 
he  was  entirely  unconscious.  He  wanted  to  tell  her  that 
all  he  wanted  was  the  impression  of  pink  roses,  but  she 
was  delighted  with  his  smile.  Her  face  was  suddenly 
suffused  with  happiness,  and  she  gave  a  shrug  and  pulled 
herself  together  as  though  to  hug  some  new  treasure  to 
herself. 

Still  smiling  dreamily  he  paid  the  bill,  took  his  hat  and 
stick  and  walked  quickly  out  into  Piccadilly  Circus, 
where  the  wheeling  shafts  of  light  flung  across  the  dark 
blue  sky  gave  him  a  sense  of  the  mechanized  city  in  which 
day  by  day  the  motive  power  was  intensified  and  de- 


i8  PINK  ROSES 


humanized  so  that  the  people  every  day  became  more 
ant-like  and  less  significant.  ...  It  was  with  a  cold 
shock  of  almost  terror  that  he  realized  that  his  thoughts 
had  begun  to  take  shape,  that  the  long-stored  impres- 
sions of  his  period  of  mourning  for  his  murdered  youth 
were  becoming  articulate  in  him,  and  that  he  was  not  at 
all  the  Trevor  Mathew  he  had  expected  to  be,  but  some- 
thing very  much  bigger,  something  rather  wickedly 
detached  and  impersonal. 

He  walked  home  watching  the  shafts  of  light  across 
the  sky,  the  crowded  motor-buses,  the  few  darting  cars 
driven  by  men  and  women  in  uniform,  the  ambulances 
gliding  quietly,  brilliantly  lit,  and  only  the  ambulances 
dared  be  up  to  the  pre-war  standard  of  displayed  effi- 
ciency. They,  like  so  much  in  pre-war  days,  proclaimed 
that  they  were  the  best  that  money  could  buy.  But 
Trevor  realized  with  a  start  that  he  had  forgotten  what 
London  was  like  before  the  war.  A  confused  memory  he 
had  of  talk  and  noise,  and  glitter  and  spending,  but  never 
anything  so  precisely  real  as  the  pink  roses  under  the 
trees.  There  was  never  anything  so  dewy  and  fresh  as 
that  impression.  He  felt  as  though  he  had  buried  his 
face  in  them,  in  the  sweet-smelling  roses  that  could  heal 
his  hurt,  and  he  knew  for  the  first  time  how  acutely  he 
had  suffered  in  these  years  in  which  the  best  of  his  gen- 
eration had  been  obliterated — for  Hardman  and  his  like 
were  the  best,  a  new  type,  bringing  a  new  note  of  honesty 
into  the  affairs  of  men,  utterly  at  variance  with  the  pre- 
ceding generation  yet  warmly  tolerant  of  it,  watching  it 
eagerly  to  see  that  the  great  traditions  did  not  slip  from 
its  careless  hands.  People  like  Hardman  knew  what  was 
going  to  happen,  and  they  ached  to  stop  it,  but  they  were 
too  young  to  be  heeded,  and  so  when  it  came  they  went 


THE  CAFE"  CLARIBEL  19 

out  to  stop  it.   ...   As  he  let  himself  into  his  room 
Trevor  distinctly  heard  Hardman's  voice  saying: 
"  Either  this  has  got  to  stop  or  I  must." 
Well,  they  had  stopped  Hardman,  but  the  war  went  on. 
Trevor  filled  his  pipe  and  lay  back  in  his  chair  and  said 
aloud : 

"  I  never  thought  I  should  be  happy  again." 
It  seemed  to  him  that  he  was  wronging  his  friends  to 
be  made  happy  by  such  a  little  thing  as  the  scent  and 
sweetness  of  a  nosegay  of  fresh  roses  fifteen  yards  away. 
To  make  amends  he  tried  to  read  a  newspaper,  but  that 
habit  also  was  broken.  It  only  made  him  laugh.  The 
unhappy  men  who  wrote  it  were  trying  to  advertise  the 
war,  to  boost  it  as  they  boosted  patent  food  or  plays. 
They  were  trying  to  boom  a  thing  that  was  eating  the 
heart  out  of  everybody's  life.  .  .  .  Trevor  laughed. 
Oh!  he  was  going  to  see  things  very  clearly,  but  it  was 
going  to  be  damned  uncomfortable.  With  that  idea  in 
his  mind  he  found  that  he  was  indeed  making  amends 
to  his  two  friends.  He  was  no  longer  haunted  by  them. 
They  were  no  longer  ghosts.  Indeed  he  was  more 
familiar  with  them  than  when  they  were  with  him.  All 
reservations  were  swept  away  and  they  were  united  in 
purpose.  They  were  all  three  turning  away  from  the 
world  as  their  fathers  had  made  it  and  were  building  it 
anew  in  accordance  with  their  own  desire,  and  what  he 
had  always  thought  was  now  proved  true — there  was 
more  in  Hardman's  laughter  than  in  Peto's  theories. 


II 

LAW 

TREVOR  had  never  been  very  popular  in  the  office.  He 
had  never  redeemed  the  mistakes  he  had  made  at  first 
when  his  shyness  had  made  him  not  a  little  of  a  nuisance. 
The  clerks  liked  him,  but  the  partners  had  not  been  able 
to  break  through  his  reserve  and  had  given  up  all  attempt 
to  make  his  acquaintance.  So  he  had  accepted  the  office 
— Hobday,  Treves  &  Treves — as  a  place  to  which  he  must 
go  more  or  less  regularly  for  three  years.  .  .  .  His  un- 
easiness had  been  aggravated  by  his  rejection  by  the  mili- 
tary authorities.  Mr.  Hobday  would  have  no  man  of 
military  age  and  fitness  in  his  office,  and  one  or  two  of 
the  clerks  compared  with  whom  Trevor  looked  an  athlete 
had  been  forced  to  go.  They  had  been  accepted,  and  they 
obviously  regarded  murmuring  hearts  as  the  privilege  of 
the  rich.  .  .  .  Again,  after  the  death  of  Hardman 
Trevor  had  refused  to  talk  about  the  war,  and  he  was 
suspected  of  being  intellectual.  Also,  as  he  had  an  ample 
allowance  the  rise  in  prices  did  not  affect  him  at  all,  and 
he  remained  untouched,  always  perfectly  dressed,  and 
careful  to  eat  in  the  atmosphere  to  which  he  was  accus- 
tomed, and  as  no  one  ever  broke  through  his  reserve  no 
one  ever  borrowed  money  from  him.  It  was  not  that 
he  did  not  notice  shabbiness.  He  did,  especially  in  boots, 
but  he  put  it  down  to  slovenliness.  He  was  an  only 
son.  He  had  always  had  plenty  of  money  and  would 
one  day  be  very  rich,  because  besides  his  father's  wealth 

20 


LAW  21 

there  was  that  of  his  uncle  and  three  aunts  to  come  to 
him.  He  had  never  really  believed  that  honest  men  were 
poor,  and  he  had  always  accepted  that  the  poverty- 
stricken  deserved  their  plight. 

His  unpopularity  in  the  office  had  made  him  listless, 
and  for  many  months  before  the  adventure  of  the  pink 
roses  he  had  played  hardly  a  more  animate  part  than  the 
Law  Reports  in  the  bookshelves.  His  articled  period 
became  merely  a  question  of  time.  He  was  sulking.  As 
the  life  he  had  planned  had  been  destroyed  he  would 
make  no  effort  to  reconstruct  any  other.  His  money  and 
his  inherited  position  would  carry  him  through,  and  he 
would  dress  well,  eat  well,  and  cultivate  his  taste  in  cigars 
and  wine.  So  far  as  he  could  see  a  partner  in  an  old 
firm  of  solicitors  need  know  precious  little  Law.  All  that 
was  necessary  was  a  good  managing-clerk.  He  himself 
would  give  his  clients  the  benefit  of  his  taste  in  food. 

After  the  adventure  of  the  pink  roses  he  began  to 
realize  dimly  that  he  was  bored.  There  was  no  one  to 
talk  to,  for  every  one  was  preoccupied  with  thoughts 
which  they  dared  not  utter.  The  young  men  had  all 
gone,  and  the  young  women  were  beginning  to  seek  dis- 
traction in  hospital  and  in  charitable  endeavours. 

For  a  time  he  would  not  admit  that  any  crisis  had  come 
upon  him.  Then  he  pretended  that  the  scene  in  the  Park 
had  given  him  the  distraction  he  needed  and  he  fre- 
quented the  promenade,  and  listened  irritably  to  the  band, 
but  that  was  not  what  he  wanted,  and  on  several  occa- 
sions he  walked  down  Piccadilly,  but  jibbed  at  the  last 
moment  and  would  not  enter  the  Cafe  Claribel.  It  was, 
he  told  himself,  second-rate:  not  the  kind  of  place  to 
which  he  would  ever  have  gone  with  his  friends,  and  it 
was  an  agony  to  him  to  think  that  he  might  in  the  small- 


22  PINK  ROSES 


est  detail  play  them  false.  He  was  the  last  remnant  of 
their  world,  and,  as  such,  he  took  himself  very  seriously. 
He  corresponded  regularly  with  their  relatives,  and  Hard- 
man  had  left  a  little  volume  of  poems  which  he  had 
undertaken  to  see  through  the  press.  .  .  .  These  were 
duties  which  he  had  to  fulfil.  After  all,  when  a  genera- 
tion is  gutted  the  survivors  owe  something  to  those  who 
are  gone.  ...  So  seriously  did  Trevor  Mathew  take 
this  debt  that  he  conceived  himself  to  owe  that  he  was 
often  inflicted  with  a  kind  of  nausea,  for  the  longer  the 
war  went  on,  the  higher  the  debt  was  piled  and  the  less 
was  he  capable  of  serenely  facing  his  liabilities,  and  he 
began  to  hate  both  the  very  old  and  the  very  young,  while 
the  sight  of  a  woman  often  made  him  feel  queasy.  Peo- 
ple who  felt  violently  about  the  war,  either  for  or  against, 
filled  him  with  disgust.  It  was  too  big  a  thing  to  admit 
of  any  kind  of  self-indulgence  in  mind  or  emotion. 

There  was  no  doubt  about  it  that  his  queasiness  was 
relieved  and  he  began  to  lose  his  envy  of  those  of  his 
friends  who  had  been  able  to  roll  up  their  minds  and  put 
them  away  for  the  period  which  they  would  have  to  spend 
in  uniform  or  in  the  service  of  the  Government,  and  he 
told  himself  that  it  was  because  of  the  charm  he  had  dis- 
covered in  the  Park.  He  went  that  way  home  every  night, 
and  almost  every  night,  reluctant  to  go  to  his  rooms,  he 
wandered  down  Piccadilly  and  almost  went  into  the  Cafe 
Claribel,  only  saving  himself  by  buying  a  paper  or  a  box 
of  matches,  or  swerving  aside  into  the  tobacconist's  or 
the  hairdresser's  next  door,  for  it  had  always  been  one  of 
his  rules  in  life  when  in  doubt  to  have  his  hair  shampooed. 

One  night  he  got  as  far  as  the  outer  hall  of  the  Cafe, 
where  there  were  Belgians  and  ladies  of  the  town  sitting 
at  little  marble-topped  tables.  He  stood  and  stared  at 


LAW  23 

them  and  backed  out.  He  did  not  like  Belgians,  or  that 
was  the  excuse  he  found  for  himself  as  he  turned  and 
almost  ran  into  Piccadilly  Circus.  He  was  ashamed  to 
buy  either  a  newspaper  or  a  box  of  matches,  and  was 
just  on  the  point  of  nerving  himself  to  defy  the  fascina- 
tion that  lured  him  on  when  he  found  his  way  blocked 
by  an  old  man  holding  two  little  dogs. 

"Buy  a  little  dawg,  sir?"  said  the  old  man,  and 
before  Trevor  knew  what  he  was  doing  he  had  bought  a 
fox-terrier  pup  for  fifteen  shillings.  The  pup  was  not 
more  than  three  months  old.  It  had  a  black  patch  over 
one  eye  and  another  on  its  tail.  Otherwise  it  was  white, 
and  fortunately  it  was  a  male. 

The  purchase  left  Trevor  with  only  half-a-crown  in  his 
pocket.  He  did  not  want  the  dog,  but  also  he  did  not 
want  to  go  into  the  Cafe  Claribel.  He  stood  for  some 
moments  cursing  himself  for  an  idiot.  The  lady  of  the 
pink  roses  came  out  of  the  Cafe  and  stood  near  him.  She 
looked  at  the  dog  and  then  up  into  Trevor's  eyes  and  said : 

"Oh!  what  a  darling!" 

Taken  unawares,  he  hastened  to  explain  nervously. 

"  I've  just  bought  him.  I  don't  really  want  him. 
Would  you  like  him?" 

"  I  love  dogs,"  said  the  lady,  "  but  they're  not  allowed 
in  the  flats  where  I  live." 

He  wanted  to  break  off  the  conversation  there,  but  her 
smile  was  so  friendly  and  her  tone  was  so  intimate  that 
he  could  not  resist  her,  and  he  knew  in  his  heart  that  it 
was  she  whom  he  had  been  so  desperately  avoiding.  He 
had  even  bought  the  pup  as  a  means  of  escape  from  her. 

"  I'm  sorry,"  he  said. 

"  You'd  better  keep  him,"  she  replied.  "  You  look  so 
lonely.  A  dog's  company." 


24  PINK  ROSES 


"  Have  you  dined  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  No.  I  felt  too  lonely.  I  thought  I'd  have  supper 
later  on." 

He  grinned  and  said :  "  I  .  .  .  I've  spent  all  my 
money  on  the  dog,  and  I've  left  my  cheque-book  at  home." 

She  thought  for  a  moment. 

"  I  could  give  you  something  to  eat  at  my  place.  It's 
just  out  of  Leicester  Square.  Not  much,  only  sardines 
and  salad,  but  I've  got  a  bottle  of  creme  de  menthe." 

Trevor  could  not  resist  the  friendliness  of  her  invita- 
tion, and  he  walked  away  with  her  while  she  talked  to 
the  pup,  whom  she  christened  Rover. 

She  lived  in  a  block  of  flats  in  Gerrard  Street,  four 
very  tiny  rooms  lamentably  over-furnished,  and  without 
taste  of  any  kind,  good  or  bad.  Every  article  in  them 
was  designed  to  look  expensive,  and  was  of  sufficiently 
good  quality  to  give  neither  offence  nor  pleasure. 

"  I  haven't  lived  here  very  long,"  said  the  lady  of  the 
pink  roses.  "  I'm  that  changeable." 

She  told  her  maid,  a  coloured  woman,  to  prepare  sup- 
per, and  she  bade  Trevor  make  himself  comfortable,  gave 
him  a  cigarette  and  an  orange  bitters,  and  went  into  her 
bedroom  to  tidy  herself.  The  maid  brought  in  a  saucer 
of  milk  for  the  pup,  who  hurled  himself  at  it  and  swal- 
lowed it  in  three  gulps  and  then,  much  distended,  lay  on 
the  white  angora  hearth-rug  and  went  to  sleep.  Trevor 
also  wanted  to  sleep.  He  felt  that  he  must  do  that  or 
run  away,  for  he  was  more  than  a  little  frightened  at  be- 
ing in  such  a  place  with  only  half-a-crown  in  his  pocket. 

The  lady  returned  shortly.  She  had  changed  into  the 
costume  she  had  worn  in  the  Park  and  in  her  bosom  she 
had  pinned  a  bouquet  of  artificial  pink  roses.  That  hurt 
Trevor  as  the  impression  of  pink  roses,  dewy  and  full  of 


LAW 25 

scent,  had  been  the  overwhelming  idea  in  his  mind  for 
so  many  days,  and  the  perfume  which  the  lady  used  was 
no  proper  substitute. 

"  That's  nice,"  she  said.  "  It  is  nice  to  see  you  sitting 
there  making  yourself  comfortable.  It's  only  a  tiny 
place,  but  it  makes  it  homely  to  see  you  sitting  there." 
She  beamed  at  him  and  watched  his  every  movement  as 
though  nothing  else  in  the  world  existed  for  her. 

"  Are  you  hungry  ?  "  she  asked. 

"  I  am  rather." 

She  was  delighted  at  that  and  ordered  the  maid  to 
hurry. 

Supper  was  soon  ready,  a  most  elegant  little  meal  laid 
in  a  room  only  half  the  size  of  the  drawing-room.  .  .  . 
The  table  was  close  to  the  window,  through  which  in  a 
house  opposite  could  be  seen  lurid  posters  of  cinema 
films,  and  Trevor,  smiling  to  himself,  thought  that  he 
had  walked  into  one  of  them,  he  and  the  pup  and  the  lady 
of  the  pink  roses.  She  was  so  delighted  to  have  him 
there  that  he  wanted  to  please  her  and  to  do  so  he  asked 
her  her  name.  Nothing  could  have  charmed  her  more. 

"  Dorothy  Clay,"  she  said.  "  That's  my  real  name. 
But  I  call  myself  Cora  Dinmont.  .  .  .  What's  yours  ?" 

He  told  her.    He  liked  her  too  much  to  lie  to  her. 

"  What  a  nice  name ! "  she  said  with  her  eyes  shining, 
and  she  crooned  it  over  to  herself. 

"  Trevor  Mathew.     Do  you  live  in  London  ?  " 

"  Yes.     I  live  alone  now." 

She  introduced  him  to  a  drink  that  was  new  to  him, 
creme  de  menthe  and  soda.  Its  taste  was  as  delicious 
as  its  colour,  while  its  novelty  was  altogether  appropriate. 

"  Tell  me  more,"  she  said. 

More  and  more  oppressed  by  its  dullness  he  told  her 


26  PINK  ROSES 


about  the  office  and  the  Law  Courts  and  the  coach  with 
whom  he  committed  to  memory  the  few  principles  discov- 
erable in  English  Law.  He  described  the  four  partners 
and  the  remaining1  clerks,  and  was  rather  astonished 
at  the  amount  of  detail  he  was  able  to  put  into  their 
portraiture. 

"You're  a  college  boy,  aren't  you?"  she  said.  "I 
like  college  boys  and  soldiers — before  the  war.  There's 
no  knowing  with  soldiers  now-a-days."  She  bit  her  lip 
and  stopped.  This  boy  was  different,  and  she  did  not 
want  to  be  with  him  what  she  was.  ...  If  only  she 
had  never  taken  money  and  had  never  made  the  dis- 
covery how  easy  it  was  to  make  money  even  in  the 
little  country  town  where  she  had  been  a  girl. 

There  was  a  certain  innocence  in  Trevor  which  she 
wanted  to  live  up  to. 

"  I  like  him  and  he  likes  me,"  she  thought.  "  Why 
should  it  make  any  difference?  He's  lonely  too." 

The  maid  brought  some  admirable  coffee,  and  Cora 
produced  a  bottle  of  fine  old  brandy.  Trevor  stretched 
out  his  legs  and  became  more  loquacious.  He  began  to 
brag  a  little: 

"  I  wanted  to  stay  up  at  Cambridge,"  he  said.  "  I 
could  easily  have  got  a  Fellowship.  I  did  History  my 
first  two  years  and  got  a  First.  I  wanted  to  go  on  with 
it,  but  my  governor  insisted  on  my  taking  Law.  I  got 
a  First  in  that  too,  but  there  isn't  much  Law  in  prac- 
tising. I  mean  it  isn't  often  you  get  a  legal  point  ..." 

He  knew  he  was  being  a  bore,  but  ordinarily  it  was 
the  hardest  thing  in  all  the  world  for  him  to  talk  about 
himself,  and  having  begun  he  could  not  stop.  Cora 
drank  in  his  words  as  though  he  were  propounding  a 
new  gospel.  Her  lips  were  parted,  her  eyes  shone,  her 


LAW  27 

bosom  rose  and  fell.  She  kept  his  glass  filled  with 
brandy,  but  hardly  touched  a  drop  herself. 

"  I  don't  know  why  I'm  telling  you  all  this,"  he 
said. 

"  Oh !  do  go  on,"  she  said.  "  My  father  was  in  the 
Law,  a  solicitor's  clerk.  They  had  a  lot  to  do  with 
public-houses." 

"  Do  you  often  dine  at  the  Cafe  Claribel?  "  he  asked. 

"  I  go  there  a  good  deal."  Again  she  bit  her  lip. 
"  It's  not  a  bad  place.  I  like  the  band  and  the  mirrors, 
and  there  are  some  nice  people  go  there  and  it's  out  of 
the  usual  run." 

"  You  must  dine  with  me  there  one  night." 

"Oh!  I'd  love  to,"  and  she  thought,  "He  does 
like  me."  But  Trevor  was  only  being  polite.  He  had 
allowed  her  to  entertain  him,  and  could  not  leave  her 
hospitality  unreturned. 

"  I've  often  wanted  to  go  there  again,"  he  added. 
"  But  I  didn't  like  to  go  in  alone.  I'd  never  been  there 
before  that  night." 

She  was  so  overjoyed  at  his  speaking  of  it,  that  she 
could  not  sit  still,  and  got  up  and  walked  about  the  room 
although  there  was  hardly  room  for  her  to  take  five 
steps  in  any  direction. 

"  I  don't  know  what  made  me  go  to  the  Park  that 
night,  but  I  had  to  go.  We  had  a  little  park  at  home, 
and  there  was  a  band  on  Sunday  afternoons.  ...  I 
remember  I  had  a  blue  crepe  de  chine  dress  and  white 
stockings,  and  there  was  a  boy  I  was  very  fond  of.  He 
was  dark  like  you.  I  think  he  went  to  college  after- 
wards. Perhaps  that's  what  made  me  so  fond  of  college 
boys.  I  often  used  to  ask  after  him — Sydney  Collier. 
You  didn't  know  him,  I  suppose?" 


28  PINK  ROSES 


"No.    No." 

"  Perhaps  it  was  Oxford  College.  I  think  he  became 
a  clergyman.  I  never  spoke  to  him.  I  suppose  every 
one  has  fancies  like  that." 

"  I  suppose  so,"  replied  Trevor.  "  I  never  had  them 
myself.  At  least,  not  after  I  was  fifteen.  ...  I  stopped 
in  the  Park  that  night  because  I  heard  the  band,  and 
then  I  liked  the  people  moving  about  under  the  trees." 

"  Yes.  I  saw  you.  I  saw  you  a  long  time  before  you 
saw  me.  I  walked  past  you  two  or  three  times.  I 
thought  at  first  you  might  be  Sydney  Collier,  although, 
of  course,  he's  a  clergyman." 

Both  enjoyed  the  aimlessness  of  their  conversation, 
and  neither  wanted  it  to  stop. 

"  I'm  glad  I  bought  the  pup,"  said  Trevor  with  a 
smile.  "  I  should  never  have  spoken  to  you  if  it  hadn't 
been  for  him.  I  can't  do  it,  you  know.  I  can't  talk  to 
people  unless  I'm  used  to  them." 

"  You're  talking  to  me  all  right,"  she  answered,  re- 
turning to  the  table,  and  sitting  with  her  elbows  on  it, 
her  chin  in  her  jewelled  hands. 

"  Ah !  but  I'm  used  to  the  idea  of  you.  I've  been 
thinking  a  good  deal  about  you." 

She  smiled  happily  and  half  closed  her  eyes.  He  liked 
that.  He  was  quite  sure  now  that  she  was  very  beau- 
tiful and  wanted  to  tell  her  so,  but  his  scruples  would 
not  let  him.  No  more  than  she  did  he  wish  to  allow  her 
position  to  interfere  with  the  pleasure  of  this  chance 
evening.  Also  he  was  afraid  that  she  would  laugh  at 
him.  Many  people  must  have  praised  her  beauty. 

"  I've  thought  about  you,  too,"  she  said  dreamily  and 
a  little  voluptuously,  so  that  his  innocence  was  offended. 
"  I've  often  looked  out  for  you.  You're  so  quiet  after 


LAW 29 

all  the  other  noisy  brutes.  London's  got  that  noisy  since 
the  war.  I've  had  a  lot  of  friends  killed — have  you?  " 

"  Yes." 

And  suddenly  in  Trevor  there  came  tumbling  in  a 
series  of  swift,  painful  realizations  that  this  evening  was 
somehow  very  important,  and  that  it  was  what  he  had 
been  waiting  for  through  the  weary  months  of  almost 
catalepsy.  It  was  his  chance  to  assert  himself,  to  break 
his  arranged  life  that  was  left  untouched  when  all  other 
arranged  lives  had  been  broken.  He  was  reminded  of  a 
cream  cake  he  had  stolen  when  he  was  a  little  boy.  The 
thought  of  tasting  it  was  so  delicious  that  he  never  ate  it 
but  took  it  to  bed  with  him  night  after  night  until  at  last 
he  lay  on  it  and  squashed  it  into  an  uneatable  mess.  The 
memory  of  it  made  him  laugh  out  loud,  and  Cora,  taking 
it  for  a  sign  of  happiness  in  him,  laughed  too. 

"I  must  go  now,"  he  said;  "good-night,  Dorothy." 

He  had  decided  to  call  her  and  to  think  of  her  as 
Dorothy  Clay. 

"  Good-night,"  he  repeated. 

"  Oh !    Are  you  going?  " 

"  I  must  go.  .  .  .  Will  you  dine  with  me  at  the 
Claribel  on  Friday  at  7.30?" 

"  I'd  love  to,  and  I'll  get  a  table.  It's  always  full 
after  seven." 

"  Oh !  I  mustn't  forget  the  pup.  I  don't  think  I'll 
call  him  Rover.  I  shall  call  him  Sydney." 

"Oh!" 

"Do  you  mind?" 

"  No.    I'd  like  your  dog  to  be  called  Sydney." 

She  fetched  the  pup  and  returned  kissing  its  sleepy, 
blank  face,  calling  it  Sydney,  Sydney,  Sydney. 

"  He'll  be  company  for  you." 


30  PINK  ROSES 


"  I  shan't  feel  lonely  any  more,"  replied  Trevor. 
"  I'm  awfully  grateful  to  the  pup.  I  hope  I  haven't 
talked  too  much.  Can  I  come  again  ?  " 

"  Whenever  you  like.     I'll  always  be  in  for  you." 

She  stood  for  a  moment  by  the  door  hoping  that  he 
would  kiss  her,  but  he  shook  hands  with  a  courtly  bow. 
She  followed  him  down  the  stairs  to  the  hall  door,  but 
again  he  only  shook  hands,  and  after  she  had  closed  the 
door  she  stood  with  the  back  of  her  hand  to  her  lips 
and  gazed  up  into  the  darkness,  and  she  said  aloud: 

"  Thank  God  I've  saved  a  bit  of  money.  Oh !  thank 
God  I've  saved  a  bit  of  money." 

Trevor  walked  home  with  the  pup  nestling  against  his 
breast.  The  sky  was  filled  with  low-hanging  clouds  and 
the  streets  were  very  dark  with  the  shaded  lamps. 
London  seemed  beautiful  and  romantic  to  him  now  that 
its  garish  night-life  had  disappeared.  Anything  could 
happen  in  such  an  atmosphere.  When  the  lights  went  up 
and  a  new  world  would  be  disclosed,  a  new  race  and  al- 
ready a  new  Trevor  Mathew  had  come  into  being,  one 
who  was  critical  and  eager  and  not  at  all  inclined  to 
accept  his  inheritance  unquestioned.  Several  times  in  his 
light-heartedness  he  kissed  the  pup.  .  .  .  He  had  wanted 
to  kiss  Dorothy  Clay  when  he  left  her,  but  he  could  never 
kiss  her  until  she  had  wiped  the  red  paint  off  her  lips. 

Meanwhile  Cora  Dinmont  was  sitting  at  her  dressing- 
table  staring  at  her  reflection  in  her  mirror.  She  had 
removed  the  paint  from  her  face  and  the  black  from  her 
eyes.  She  gazed  at  her  arms  and  her  bosom.  She  was 
proud  of  them,  but  she  was  a  little  afraid  of  her  face 
without  its  covering.  Was  it  beautiful?  Could  it  pos- 
sibly be  beautiful?  .  .  .  Just  a  touch  of  rouge,  just  a 
hint  of  blue  round  her  eyes.  .  .  .  No.  That  was 


LAW  31 

wrong.  She  removed  it  and  nodded  and  smiled  at  herself. 

"Hello!  Dorothy  Clay!"  she  said.  "Hello!  Dorothy 
Clay.  Sydney  Collier's  come,  and  he  isn't  a  clergyman !  " 

So  she  sat  deliriously  and  happily  shedding  the  trap- 
pings of  Cora  Dinmont  and  groping  gradually  back  into 
the  past  until  it  became  so  vivid  that  through  the  open 
window  she  could  smell  the  beanfields  and  the  meadow- 
sweet, and  hear  the  water  tumbling  over  the  weir  from 
the  canal  into  the  little  river,  and  she  could  hear  the 
rooks  stirring  and  cawing  in  the  trees.  .  .  .  She  would 
get  a  blue  crepe  de  chine  dress  made,  and  she  would  wear 
white  stockings  with  it. 

She  nodded  and  smiled  at  her  reflection. 

"  Good-night,  Dorothy  Clay,"  she  said. 

Then  she  turned  off  the  light  and  jumped  into  her  pre- 
posterous bed  with  its  pink  silk  coverlet  and  decorations 
of  pink  ribbon,  and  lay  aching  with  happiness  at  being 
alone. 


Ill 

CHATEAU  MARGAUX 

ON  Friday  afternoon  Cora  Dinmont,  almost  unrecog- 
nizable without  her  paint,  went  to  the  Cafe  Claribel  to 
order  a  table  for  two.  First  of  all,  she  thought  she  would 
have  the  table  in  the  screened  corner  by  the  door,  but 
then  she  decided  that  this  would  expose  the  young  man 
too  much  to  the  gazes  of  other  women,  and  she  decided 
on  the  top  corner  where  Trevor  could  sit  with  his  back  to 
the  diners,  and  she  could  see  what  was  going  on  among 
the  regular  frequenters  of  the  place.  She  told  the  maitre 
d'hotel,  who  looked  like  a  gargoyle  from  a  Dore  illustra- 
tion of  Rabelais,  that  she  wanted  an  extra  special  dinner. 

"As  usual?"  said  the  maitre  d'hotel,  and  Cora 
frowned. 

"  Mr.  Ysnaga  has  ordered  a  table  already,"  said  the 
maitre  d'hotel. 

"  I  am  not  dining  with  Mr.  Ysnaga,"  snapped  Cora, 
and  she  wished  she  could  arrange  to  meet  Trevor  some- 
where else,  but  she  did  not  know  his  address. 

She  had  tea  at  the  Claribel  and  afterwards,  the  evening 
being  fine,  she  walked  along  to  the  Park  and  sat  where 
Trevor  had  sat  on  the  evening  of  their  first  encounter. 
There  was  no  band,  but  she  stayed  until  she  was  chilled, 
imagining  herself  back  in  the  country  meeting  a  young 
man  like  Trevor,  going  through  all  the  stages  of  courting 
with  him,  being  taken  home  and  introduced  to  his  family, 

32 


CHATEAU  MARGAUX  33 

and — here  she  was  so  moved  that  tears  rolled  down  her 
cheeks — married,  living  in  a  little  house.  .  .  .  Why 
not?  Everybody  said  she  was  a  good  sort.  She  under- 
stood men  and  food  and  marketing.  She  had  never  lost 
her  head  like  some  girls,  and  she  had  kept  wonderfully 
fresh  and  young.  .  .  .  She  knew  several  girls,  French 
girls  too,  who  had  got  married. 

She  had  bought  herself  a  blue  crepe  de  chine  frock, 
and  she  wore  white  suede  shoes  and  silk  stockings.  Her 
hat  was  a  neat  little  blue  straw  with  pink  roses.  As  she 
returned  she  bought  some  pink  roses  from  one  of  the 
old  women  by  the  fountain.  Four-and-sixpence !  How 
prices  had  gone  up  since  the  war! 

She  stood  by  the  fountain  and  looked  over  towards 
the  Claribel.  There  was  no  sign  of  Trevor  yet,  only  the 
usual  throng  of  officers,  street-walkers — of  whom  she 
thought  with  contempt — actors  and  actresses,  touts  and 
street-vendors.  She  rather  hated  that  corner  now  and 
she  wished  a  bomb  would  fall  on  it  one  night  and  kill 
some  of  the  lounging  people  who  made  it  so  noisy  and 
vulgar.  Meeting  her  there  Trevor  might  think  her  one 
of  them.  .  .  .  She  saw  people  whom  she  knew  going 
into  the  Claribel,  and  she  began  almost  to  wish  that  he 
would  not  come.  The  old  man  with  the  dogs  was  there, 
and  she  felt  so  grateful  to  him  that  she  ran  over  and 
slipped  five  shillings  into  his  hand. 

"  Make  it  ten,  lady,"  he  said,  "  and  you  can  'ave  the 
little  dawg." 

She  shook  her  head  and  backed  away  from  him  in  con- 
fusion, and  then  Trevor  arrived.  He  had  stopped  late 
at  the  office,  and  had  been  to  his  club  to  cash  a  cheque. 
The  old  man  recognized  him. 

"  Little  dawg  doing  well,  sir  ?  "  he  asked. 


34  PINK  ROSES 


"  First  rate,  thanks,"  said  Trevor,  taking  Cora's  out- 
stretched hand  and  bowing  over  it  in  his  courtly  way. 

"  I've  got  a  table,"  she  said  as  they  passed  in  through 
the  swing  doors  which  the  commissionaire  held  open  for 
them.  She  annoyed  him  by  making  a  silly  joke  about 
dogs  not  being  admitted,  but  his  annoyance  was  soon 
lost  in  the  nervous  tension  of  their  entry  into  the  grand 
cafe-saloon  of  the  Claribel.  His  senses  were  made  exces- 
sively acute  by  the  novelty  of  the  experience. 

Facilis  descensus  averni. 

The  Dore  maitre  d'hotel  swept  towards  them  with  a 
swing  of  the  tails  of  his  frock-coat  and  with  outstretched 
hand  and  dancing,  minding  step  he  conducted  them  up 
to  the  table  which  Cora  had  selected.  The  cafe-saloon 
seemed  endless  to  Trevor,  all  his  English  prejudices 
bristling  against  so  much  foreign  atmosphere. 

"I  thought  you'd  like  this  corner,"  said  Cora.  "It's 
a  long  way  from  the  band  and  we  needn't  see  any- 
body." 

"  I  like  it,"  replied  Trevor  as  he  blinked  and  contrasted 
the  scene  with  the  quiet,  dusty  traditionalism  of  the 
office.  "  It  is  quite  like  being  abroad." 

"Oh!    Have  you  travelled  much?" 

"  Only  to  Paris." 

"  That's  all  I've  been  to."  She  beamed  at  him.  This 
was  another  common  bond,  that  they  had  both  only  been 
to  Paris. 

He  ordered  dinner  with  some  ceremony,  just  as  he 
used  to  do  at  the  Savoy  or  the  Carlton  in  the  old  days 
with  Hardman  and  Peto. 

"  I  think  claret,  don't  you  ?  There's  nothing  to  beat 
good  claret." 

"  The   Chateau-Margaux   is   their   best   claret,"   said 


CHATEAU  MARGAUX  35 

Cora,  and  then  she  was  annoyed  with  herself  for  exhibit- 
ing so  much  knowledge.  Dorothy  Clay  could  know 
nothing  about  wine. 

"  Very  well,  then.  A  bottle  of  Chateau  Margaux,  sole 
Mornay,  entrecote,  pommes  nouvelles,  creme  caramel. 
How's  that?" 

The  Dore  maitre  d'hotel  wrote  down  the  order  and 
Trevor  said: 

"  We  must  drink  Sydney's  health.  I  think  he'll  grow 
into  a  dog  in  time.  I'm  going  to  take  him  down  to  the 
office  sometimes  to  teach  him  the  Law.  ...  I  think  I 
shall  send  him  to  Rugby  and  Caius." 

Cora  stared  at  him.  She  was  not  used  to  the  Cam- 
bridge brand  of  nonsense,  for  her  college  boys  had  been 
of  a  very  different  stamp. 

Trevor  wanted  to  go  on  talking  about  himself.  He 
had  been  bottled  up  for  so  long  and  had  not  had  such  a 
good  listener  as  Cora  had  proved  herself  to  be  for 
years,  for  he  had  always  played  the  audience  to  his 
friends. 

"  I've  only  one  more  year  in  London,"  he  said.  "  I 
suddenly  realized  that  after  our  delicious  supper  the 
other  night.  I'd  given  up  thinking  about  time.  There's 
no  reason  why  it  shouldn't  be  a  splendid  year,  is  there? 
...  I  mean,  if  I've  got  to  go  back  and  live  in  the  pre- 
war provinces  I  ought  to  have  something  to  remember. 
After  all,  it  isn't  my  fault  that  I've  got  a  heart.  If  I 
hadn't  I  should  either  be  dead  or  have  wonderful 
memories  of  a  Greek  island,  or  the  desert,  or  ruined  vil- 
lages in  France  or  Belgium ;  something  that  isn't  English 
any  way.  .  .  .  I've  been  thinking.  I  don't  see  why  we 
shouldn't  forget  everything  else  for  a  year." 

The  waiter  brought  the  Chateau  Margaux,  poured  the 


36  PINK  ROSES 


first  drops  into  Trevor's  glass  and  filled  Cora's.  She 
raised  her  glass  and  smiled  at  him.  When  his  was  full  he 
raised  it,  held  it  out  towards  hers,  and  touched  it, 
saying : 

"  Here's  to  our  year." 

Cora  drained  her  glass  and  a  faint  colour  crept  into 
her  pale  cheeks.  Trevor  laughed  and  said : 

"  Sydney  will  be  a  dog  by  then.  .  .  .  It  is  wonder- 
ful what  a  difference  a  dog  makes.  I  was  beginning  to 
think  I  should  never  care  for  a  soul  again.  It's  the  war, 
I  think.  One  stops,  somehow." 

Cora's  blank  expression  forced  him  to  realize  that  he 
was  talking  over  her  head,  and  he  muttered  apolo- 
getically : 

"  It  was  the  Dardanelles.  That  was  the  last  straw. 
The  sawdust  trickled  out  of  us  all  after  that.  ...  I 
beg  your  pardon."  He  filled  her  glass  again.  "  If  I'd 
any  sense  I  should  have  taken  to  food  and  drink  after 
that.  Thinking  was  no  use,  was  it  ?  " 

The  waiter  brought  the  sole  Mornay,  and  Trevor,  eye- 
ing the  nearly  empty  bottle,  said: 

"  Can  we  do  another  half  bottle?  " 

"  Can  you?  "  asked  Cora. 

He  took  this  as  a  challenge  and  ordered  another  bottle. 

"  It  is  good  stuff,"  he  said.  "  There  is  no  harm  in 
good  stuff." 

But  Cora  did  not  hear  him.  With  the  dainty,  fas- 
tidious greediness  of  a  cat  she  was  eating  her  sole,  and 
Trevor,  looking  across  at  her,  thought  she  was  very  like 
a  cat;  wise  and  mysterious  and  completely  competent. 
He  thought  but  did  not  say: 

"  Are  you  really  not  interested  in  the  war  ?  Did  it 
never  move  you?  Didn't  you  even  feel  a  kind  of  sea- 


CHATEAU  MARGAUX  37 

sickness  when  they  withdrew  from  the  Dardanelles  and 
the  feeling  in  the  country  turned  from  a  Quixotic  exalta- 
tion to  blind  hatred  of  the  Hun?  " 

Her  healthy  absorption  in  her  food  was  a  sufficient 
answer  to  his  questions  and  he  envied  her.  There  was 
no  pretence  or  consciousness  about  her  enjoyment,  and 
she  was  so  thoroughly  happy  that  she  did  not  need  to 
talk  or  think.  This  seemed  marvellous  to  him.  She  had 
some  secret  which  had  been  denied  him,  and  to  account 
for  it,  he  told  himself  that  she  was  "of  the  people." 

"  'Do  you  ever  read  anything  ?  "  he  asked  at  last,  in 
a  kind  of  desperation. 

"  Ooh !  The  Sunday  papers.  I  stay  in  bed  on  Sun- 
days." 

"  I  mean  books." 

"  I  like  a  pretty  story  now  and  then." 

The  entrecote  had  arrived  and  with  it  the  second  bottle 
of  Chateau  Margaux.  When  he  was  half  way  through 
that  he  began  to  smile  at  himself.  After  all  it  was  he 
who  was  to  be  pitied.  She  had  lived  while  he  had  given 
his  energy  to  a  thing  called  History,  to  which  the  events 
of  the  last  few  years  had  given  the  lie.  She,  having 
lived,  could  go  on  unperturbed  while  he,  having  thought, 
was  left  exposed  and  groping.  History  had  been  given 
the  lie,  and  the  Law  was  a  dusty  anachronism  that  had 
grown  out  of  old  tyrannies  and  privileges  to  preserve 
their  letter  long  after  their  spirit  had  disappeared. 

There  was  nothing  anachronistic  about  Cora.  All  her 
traditions  were  intact  They  at  least  had  remained  and 
would  remain  unquestioned.  She  had  no  problems, 
internal  or  external.  The  only  question  for  her  was 
Food  and  How  to  get  it. 

"  That,"  said  Trevor,  "  is  the  only  thing  that  matters." 


38  PINK  ROSES 


"  What  is  ?  "  asked  she,  surprised  at  his  so  suddenly 
breaking  the  glowing  wine-lit  silence. 

"  Food,"  he  answered.  "  That  is  what  it  is  all  about, 
Food  and  anxiety  about  the  continuance  of  supplies." 

Vaguely  divining  that  he  was  talking  about  the  war, 
she  said: 

"  I  don't  mind  air-raids,  but  I  do  wish  they'd  put  the 
lights  up." 

"  If  they  put  the  lights  up,"  chuckled  Trevor  rather 
drunkenly,  "  the  people  would  think  the  war  had  stopped, 
and  it  would  stop." 

"Wouldn't  that  be  lovely?  I'm  so  sick  of  soldiers. 
They're  all  nerves.  I've  had  some  very  bad  times  with 
soldiers.  Some  of  them  are  so  queer.  I  remember  there 
was  one  who  clung  on  to  me  and  wept  as  if  his  heart  was 
breaking,  and  said  he  would  never  go  back.  I  had  to  give 
him  brandy  and  then  he  was  better.  Wasn't  it  ter- 
rible?" 

Trevor's  heart  began  to  thump  and  his  thoughts  roved, 
and  he  traced  patterns  with  his  fork  on  the  table- 
cloth. 

"  I'm  a  fool,"  he  said.  "  I'm  a  damned  fool.  The 
other  night  I  went  away  wanting  to  call  you  Dorothy 
Clay  because  I  didn't  like — all  that.  Compared  with  a 
lawyer's  yours  is  an  honest  calling.  What  you  do  is  of 
service  to  humanity.  You  allay  suffering.  We  foment 
it  and  turn  other  people's  quarrels  into  money,  and  our 
impositions  were  so  enormous  that  they  had  to  be  made 
statutory." 

He  enjoyed  talking  to  her  in  words  that  she  could 
not  possibly  understand.  It  was  an  unscrupulous  attempt 
to  assert  his  superiority. 

"  I  do  love  to  hear  you  talk,"  sighed  Cora.     "  I  do 


CHATEAU  MARGAUX  39 

really.  So  few  men  have  anything  to  say  for  them- 
selves." 

For  some  reason  the  band  was  patriotically  disposed, 
and  played  the  Marseillaise,  the  Russian  and  the  Japa- 
nese anthems,  and  God  Save  the  King,  and  with  each 
tune  in  turn  little  groups  of  diners  stood  up  in  reverence, 
and  then  returned  to  their  food,  wine,  and  talk. 

"  And  for  those  tunes,"  said  Trevor,  "  millions  of  men 
are  being  killed.  They  are  sung  that  posterity  may  have 
supper." 

"  D'you  like  cinemas?"  asked  Cora. 

"  Cinemas  ?  .  .  .  I  used  to  enjoy  a  good  play,  but 
I'd  rather  forgotten  about  enjoying  anything  until  I  met 
you.  .  .  .  Would  you  like  to  go  to  one  ?  " 

"  I  like  a  good  cinema.  It's  better  than  reading 
because  you  can  see  for  yourself,  but  I  don't  like  war- 
pictures.  They  give  me  the  hump." 

"Horrors?" 

"  No.  It  isn't  that.  It's  all  these  men  in  line,  and 
sometimes  they  show  you  thousands  and  thousands  of 
them  marching.  It  seems  silly  somehow.  And  I  know 
what  some  of  them  are  like  when  they  come  back.  They 
want  too  much  of  a  girl." 

There  was  something  in  her  that  frightened  Trevor 
and  at  the  same  time  attracted  him  deeply,  so  that  the 
superficial  charm  she  had  had  for  him  disappeared.  Her 
eyes  were  big  and  dark,  but  they  had  no  gleam  of  intelli- 
gence whatever,  and  yet  he  felt  that  she  knew  and  under- 
stood him,  or  at  least  his  mood,  better  than  any  one  he 
had  ever  known,  and  she  made  him  understand  himself. 
.  .  .  He  also  knew  that  even  if  he  had  wished  it,  he 
could  not  escape  from  her,  because  he  needed  her  and 
she  him. 


40  PINK  ROSES 


He  would  not  use  the  word  in  connection  with  what 
had  happened,  because  it  was  so  remote  from  what  he 
had  always  thought  and  vaguely  dreamed  of  as  love.  It 
was  something  better  and  more  real  than  what  he  had 
meant  by  love,  which  had  been  rather  a  formal  thing, 
nice,  discreet,  decent.  He  wanted  to  be,  he  must  be  dis- 
turbed out  of  the  nauseated  lethargy  in  which  his  grief 
had  left  him.  He  must  have  something  active  working 
in  his  soul  to  withstand  the  corrosion  of  the  war,  and  he 
felt  utterly  certain  that  Cora  understood  this  perfectly 
— not  with  her  head  perhaps,  but  with  her  heart,  with 
her  body,  her  blood,  her  nerves,  all  of  which  offered  him 
a  steady  good  comradeship.  There  was  no  room  for 
deceit  now.  His  case  had  been  revealed  to  him — by  her 
— as  too  desperate,  and  he  was  intensely  grateful  to  her 
for  her  unconscious  revelation. 

He  turned  and  looked  down  the  long  cafe-saloon. 

"  Do  you  know  any  of  these  people  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  A  good  many  of  them." 

"What  do  they  do?" 

"  Oh !  anything.  .  .  .  The  girls  are  always  making 
money  and  the  men  do  sometimes.  I  wouldn't  like  you 
to  know  any  of  them." 

"Why  not?" 

"  They're  not  your  sort." 

"  What  is  my  sort?  "  he  asked  with  a  smile. 

"  Ooh !  Gentlemen  and  ladies.  People  who  never 
think  about  the  rent." 

The  shrewdness  of  the  definition  pleased  him.  That 
was  the  only  distinction  in  the  world  since  1914.  Some 
people  had  money  and  others  got  it  as  best  they  could. 
Manners  had  been  swept  away. 

Thoughts  and  memories  began  to  crowd  in  on  him  so 


CHATEAU  MARGAUX  41 

fast  that  he  could  no  longer  bear  to  sit  still.  He  gulped 
down  his  coffee  and  liqueur  and  asked  for  the  bill.  As 
he  was  waiting  for  it  he  leaned  forward,  and  said: 

"  You  know,  what  has  been  wrong  with  me  is  that  I 
have  had  to  go  on  thinking.  Some  of  my  friends  said: 
'  The  war  is  right.'  They  have  been  killed.  A  few 
others  said :  '  The  war  is  wrong.'  Some  of  them  are  in 
prison.  But  it  satisfied  them  like  a  gospel.  I  couldn't  say 
it  was  right  or  wrong.  To  me  it  was  outside  morality, 
like  cholera.  Nothing  alters  that.  You  can't  hide  the 
truth  by  making  a  hell  of  a  noise.  That  is  why  I  have 
kept  so  quiet.  I  can't  go  on  until  I  feel  certain  in 
myself." 

Cora  smiled  at  him  kindly.  He  took  her  hand  and 
said: 

"  I  shan't  be  interfered  with  for  a  year." 

"  All  right,  kid,"  she  said,  giving  his  hand  a  warm 
squeeze.  "  You're  all  right." 

To  her  he  seemed  very  young,  very  unhappy  and  more 
than  ever  like  Syd  Collier. 

With  the  bill  the  waiter  brought  a  note  for  her.  She 
read  it  and  looked  angrily  down  the  cafe-saloon  and 
shook  her  head.  Trevor  involuntarily  turned,  and  a  few 
tables  away  saw  a  handsome  Jew  with  a  long,  crooked 
nose  and  black  eyes  of  an  extraordinary  brilliance  star- 
ing with  a  confident  smile. 

"  Who  is  that  man?  "  he  asked. 

"  His  name  is  Jose  Ysnaga,"  replied  Cora.  "  He 
wants  me  to  go  and  play  poker.  But  he  doesn't  play 
straight.  That  nose  of  his  can  smell  money  a  mile  off. 
.  .  .  Let's  go  to  a  cinema." 

Trevor  stole  another,  glance  at  the  Jew  and  then  back 
at  Cora,  and  for  a  moment  his  native  English  caution 


42  PINK  ROSES 


asserted  itself  and  he  suspected  her  of  luring  him  into 
the  company  of  thieves.  He  laughed  it  off,  however, 
and  said: 

"  He  looks  as  if  he  did  well  out  of  it." 

"  He  does,"  said  Cora.  "  He's  a  rich  man,  but  he 
can't  go  straight." 

It  was  on  the  tip  of  Trevor's  tongue  to  ask  the  hack- 
neyed question: 

"  Why  isn't  he  at  the  war?  " 

But  he  swallowed  it  as  absurd.  It  takes  more  than  a 
war  to  divert  the  Ysnagas  of  the  world  from  their  pur- 
poses. 

As  they  walked  down  the  cafe-saloon  he  studied  the 
man  carefully,  and  found  himself  admiring  his  imper- 
turbable smooth  rakishness.  He  had  a  very  beautiful 
woman  with  him,  and  on  his  table  was  an  iced  bottle  of 
champagne,  two  or  three  liqueur  bottles,  and  in  his 
ringed  right  hand  he  held  a  large  cigar.  He  rose  as 
they  passed,  and  it  was  impossible  for  Cora  to  avoid 
speaking  to  him  though  she  refused  to  introduce  Trevor. 
That  did  not  prevent  Ysnaga  turning  to  him  and  with  a 
charmingly  apologetic  air  explaining  that  he  had  some- 
thing of  importance  to  say  to  Miss  Dinmont.  Ysnaga's 
manners  were  so  magnificently  bad  as  to  be  pardonable. 
Nothing  else  could  be  expected  of  him,  for  he  was  so 
completely  himself. 

Cora  was  very  angry,  and  all  Trevor  heard  of  their 
conversation  was: 

"  I'm  not  going  to,  so  there." 

Ysnaga  bowed  with  a  wide  crooked  smile,  and  Cora 
said: 

"  Come  along,  Boy." 

Trevor  nodded  and  followed  her  out  into  the  street. 


CHATEAU  MARGAUX  43 

"  He's  a  bad  man,"  she  said,  "  and  he  wants  to  make 
everybody  as  bad  as  himself.  He  pretends  he  was  born 
in  America  to  get  out  of  the  Army,  though  he's  got 
Whitechapel  written  all  over  his  ugly  face.  But  he  does 
know  how  to  make  money.  He's  got  two  factories  out 
at  Bow,  and  the  Government  owes  him  I  don't  know  how 
many  thousands.  He  was  in  prison  when  the  war  began." 

Trevor  gulped  down  this  surprising  information.  It 
startled  him  and  jolted  him  even  out  of  his  excitement 
in  plunging  away  from  the  captivity  of  routine  in  which 
he  had  lived.  He  gasped : 

"Really?" 

And  Cora  said: 

"  Yes.  He  had  a  cinema  then,  but  it  didn't  pay. 
.  .  .  Do  you  like  Dorothy  Gish  ?  " 

"Who  is  she?" 

"  She's  on  the  films.  I  think  she's  sweet.  Her  and 
Pauline  Frederick  I  like  best:  I  don't  care  for  the  men 
on  the  films  except  Charlie  Chaplin." 

They  found  their  way  to  a  cinema  in  a  by-street.  The 
doorkeeper  greeted  Cora  familiarly,  and  the  manager,  a 
little  dwarfish  rather  deformed  man,  came  up  to  her  in 
the  dark,  squeezed  her  arm,  and  said: 

"  Hello,  Cora;  you  haven't  been  in  lately." 

"No.     How's  business?" 

"  Not  exactly  roaring,  but — all  right." 

Trevor  lost  his  temper  and  dragged  Cora  away  after 
the  girl  waiting  to  light  them  to  their  seats.  Cora  was 
pleased  with  him  for  that,  and  gave  a  contented  sigh  as 
she  sank  into  her  seat.  As  he  removed  his  hat  she  took 
it  and  held  it  on  her  lap.  She  was  delighted  to  have  him 
so  easily  surrendering  to  her  life,  for  she  knew  that  such 
surrender  was  what  he  needed. 


44  PINK  ROSES 


He  even  saw  the  pictures  through  her  eyes  as  they 
flickered  in  front  of  him,  and  responded  to  every  foolish 
joke  with  a  laugh  and  to  every  false  sentiment  with  a 
twinge  of  emotion,  that  just  stirred,  knew  that  it  was  not 
really  required  and  slipped  back  again.  That  was  very 
pleasant  and  left  him  undisturbed  to  the  investigation  of 
what  had  happened  and  was  still  happening  between  him 
and  the  lady  of  the  pink  roses.  ...  In  the  first  place, 
they  had  had  a  very  good  dinner;  in  the  second,  though 
she  understood  hardly  a  word  of  what  he  said,  she  under- 
stood why  he  said  it  and  that  was  far  more  important. 
A  monologue  with  her  was  far  more  fruitful  than  an 
intellectual  discussion  with  some  one  of  his  own  stand- 
ing, and  finally  and  above  all  it  was  physically  good  to  be 
with  her.  The  dinner  and  the  wine  had  made  it  clear 
that  that  was  all-important.  .  .  .  He  had  always  ac- 
cepted life  at  second-hand  and  by  hearsay.  With  her  he 
must  begin  again  without  any  ready-made  conceptions 
whatsoever.  Even  the  cinema,  with  her,  gave  a  truer 
representation  of  life  than  he  had  obtained  from  all  his 
reading.  His  hand  slipped  to  her  arm  and  held  it,  warm, 
strong,  rotund.  .  .  .  What  a  good  sort  she  was !  That 
was  the  important  thing  to  be  in  a  world  so  withered  of 
humanity  that  it  could  tolerate  and  even  take  pride  in  its 
slow  dragging  calamity. 

As  he  caressed  her  arm  he  thought  whimsically  that  he 
had  found  much  the  same  sort  of  comfort  from  the  con- 
tact of  the  pup,  Sydney,  nestling  against  his  breast  as  he 
took  him  home.  There  was  a  dog  in  one  of  the  pictures, 
a  marvellously  trained  animal  who  evaded  policemen 
with  great  skill.  Extraordinary  how  satisfying  that 
spectacle  was,  something  in  it  emblematic  of  the  whole  of 
human  activity,  always,  always,  evading  policemen. 


CHATEAU  MARGAUX      45 

"  You  can  talk  here,  you  know,"  said  Cora.  "  It  isn't 
a  theatre." 

"  I'm  so  interested,"  said  Trevor.  "  I  did  like  that 
dog." 

"  He  is  good,  isn't  he  ?  I  daresay  it's  like  people. 
Some  people  are  born  for  the  films  and  some  aren't.  I 
daresay  it's  the  same  with  dogs.  .  .  .  But  I  shall  be 
jealous  if  you  like  dogs  so  much." 

He  gave  her  arm  a  sharp  squeeze,  so  happy  was  he  at 
the  confession  of  her  interest  in  him. 

She  leaned  towards  him  and  whispered: 

"  It's  like  I  always  wanted  it  to  be.  Some  one  good- 
looking  and  with  a  nice  voice  like  you." 

He  raised  her  hand  to  his  lips  and  kissed  it,  and  he 
looked  with  an  intense  sympathy  at  two  couples  in  the 
row  in  front  of  them  who,  sitting  low  in  their  seats, 
were  locked  in  each  other's  arms,  murmuring,  lost  to 
everything  in  the  world. 

The  pictures  flickered  on.  Cora  sighed  and  sank  hap- 
pily into  the  new  development  of  their  friendship,  and 
Trevor's  heart  grew  big  within  him  as  he  became  more 
intensely  aware  of  the  warmth  of  the  humanity  crowded 
into  that  dark,  narrow  room  for  the  distraction  of  their 
senses  while  their  deeper  powers  groped  into  the  life  they 
shared.  It  was  the  first  time  he  had  felt  at  all  the  power 
of  a  crowd,  the  first  time  he  had  ever  gazed  into  such 
depths  without  dizziness  and  disgust.  Contact  with  its 
force  made  him  want  to  laugh  gleefully  at  its  languid 
aimlessness,  and  he  had  just  begun  to  enjoy  that  when 
suddenly  the  scene  was  blank  and  where  the  picture  had 
been  appeared  an  announcement  that  an  air-raid  was  in 
progress,  and  the  dwarfed  manager,  standing  on  the 
cracked  piano,  assured  the  audience  that  the  theatre  was 


46  PINK  ROSES 


bomb-proof,  and  that  there  would  be  a  quarter  of  an 
hour  or  twenty  minutes  in  which  to  take  other  shelter. 
.  .  .  But  no  one  listened.  The  unity  of  the  crowd  was 
broken.  Lovers  sprang  apart.  Women  screamed.  There 
was  a  rush  to  the  doors. 

"Take  me  home,"  said  Cora.  "That's  all  right;  the 
floors  are  concrete." 

As  they  passed  into  the  street  guns  were  heard,  and 
with  each  thud  the  scurrying  men  and  women  ran  faster. 
A  woman  near  them  cried : 

"O  God!    O  God!    O  God!" 

And  a  man  who  was  running  with  a  queer  swaying 
gait  swooned.  Two  policemen  ran  to  pick  him  up. 

It  was  only  two  minutes  to  Cora's  flat.  The  coloured 
maid  admitted  them.  Her  face  was  a  yellowy  grey. 

"  It's  all  right  in  here,"  said  Cora.  "  It  couldn't  get 
through  the  top  floor.  We'll  have  some  supper  pres- 
ently." 

The  maid  was  reassured  by  their  company,  and  Trevor 
began  to  realize  how  frightened  he  had  been.  His 
legs  trembled,  and  he  could  not  make  his  lips  frame 
words. 

"  Ha !  Ha !  "  he  said.  "  This  is  ridiculous.  I've  never 
minded  it  like  this — before.  ...  It  was  being  in  that 
crowd  and  that  poor  devil  fainting." 

The  guns  began  again,  a  big  gun  far  away,  a  small 
one  barking  nearer.  He  said: 

"  I  must  go  home  to  the  pup." 

"  Dogs  don't  mind." 

"  Yes,"  he  said.  "  I  suppose  they  think  that  anything 
men  choose  to  do  is  all  right.  .  .  .  Men  are  just  the 
same  with  governments.  I  haven't  minded  it  so  much 
before.  I  just  looked  on  .  .  ." 


CHATEAU  MARGAUX  47 

"Don't  talk,  dear,"  said  Cora.  "It  isn't  good  for 
you." 

She  put  her  arms  round  his  neck  and  drew  his  head 
down  until  staring  at  her  lips  he  made  quite  sure  that 
there  was  not  a  vestige  of  red  paint  on  them,  and  he 
kissed  her  and  sank  deep  into  her  happiness. 

For  a  couple  of  hours  the  guns  roared  on,  but  they 
heard  nothing,  only  each  other's  words,  the  blood  beating 
in  their  hearts,  the  sweet  sighing  breath  of  contentment. 

He  awoke  in  the  morning  to  see  Cora  coming  in  with 
a  breakfast  tray. 

"  How  you  sleep ! "  she  said.  "  It's  nearly  eleven 
o'clock,  and  Estelle  has  gone  out  to  do  the  shopping. 
There  were  only  forty  people  killed  last  night,  and  not 
much  material  damage  done;  so  the  paper  says,  though 
they  always  lie." 

As  she  laid  down  the  tray  he  caught  her  in  his  arms 
and  hid  his  face  in  her  neck: 

"  You  dear,  dear  creature,"  he  said.     "  I  love  you." 

"  Does  it  matter  your  being  so  late  ?  "  she  asked. 

"  No.    Nothing  matters.    Nothing,  nothing  matters." 


IV 
HOBDAY,  TREVES  AND  TREVES 

MR.  HOBDAY  took  himself  very  seriously.  He  had  been 
head  of  the  firm  for  nearly  thirty  years,  and  in  his  view 
Hobday,  Treves  and  Treves  and  the  British  Empire  were 
in  their  fortunes  intimately  linked.  He  read  the  Morn- 
ing Post  for  his  politics  and  The  Times  for  its  Law 
Reports,  and  when  the  Daily  Mail  dared  to  question  the 
omniscience  and  omnipotence  of  Lord  Kitchener  he 
called  his  staff  into  his  sanctum  and  burned  the  rag  with 
the  following  homily : 

"  It  is  the  soldiers  who  are  going  to  win  this  war. 
The  civilian  who  doubts  the  capacity  of  our  tried  and 
proven  soldiers  to  win  the  war  is  a  traitor  to  his  King, 
to  his  country,  and  to  his  own  best  self.  We  have  never 
lost  a  war  yet  and  we  are  not  going  to  lose  this  one. 
Every  young  man  in  this  country  is  now  Kitchener's 
man,  and  every  old  man  wishes  to  God  he  were  thirty 
years  younger.  .  .  .  M — m.  You  may  go." 

Mr.  William  Treves  was  a  bachelor  of  fifty,  but  he 
had  a  fatty  heart  and  assumed  responsibility  for  Mr. 
Robert's  family  when  the  junior  partner  obtained  a  com- 
mission and  was  posted  to  a  recruiting  depot  at  York. 
.  .  .  Only  the  office  boy  and  the  most  junior  clerk  were 
required  by  the  Army,  so  that  the  staff  of  this  old  and 
honoured  firm  remained  intact,  but  as  Mr.  Hobday  con- 
tinued to  read  the  Morning  Post  war  fever  raged  long 
after  it  had  disappeared  from  Trevor's  thoughts.  He 

48 


HOBDAY,  TREVES  AND  TREVES  49 

felt  completely  estranged  and  like  a  wicked  cynic  among 
youthful  idealists.  It  was  extraordinary  how  untouched 
the  firm  remained.  Business  was  good,  better  than  ever 
indeed.  A  great  action  between  two  mining  companies  in 
South  Africa  which  had  been  maturing  for  years  ripened 
at  last  for  hearing,  and  enormous  fees  began  to  accrue 
due.  Mr.  Hobday  was  generous,  and  though  he  did  not 
raise  salaries  he  granted  war  bonuses  in  consideration  of 
the  rise  in  prices. 

This  of  course  did  not  affect  Trevor,  whom  in  his 
patriotic  fervour  Mr.  Hobday  had  decided  to  ignore — a 
young  man  in  his  early  twenties  loafing  about  an  office 
when  there  was  a  man's  work  to  be  done  in  half  a  dozen 
different  quarters  of  the  globe.  Up  to  a  point  Mr.  Hob- 
day's resentment  was  just,  for  there  was  no  doubt  about 
it  that  during  his  second  year  Trevor  did  loaf.  He  sulked 
and  thought  morosely  of  his  thwarted  desire  to  stay  at 
Cambridge  with  a  Fellowship,  but  that  life  had  also  been 
destroyed.  The  accounts  he  had  of  Cambridge  from  his 
friends  were  heartbreaking — a  few  elderly  dons,  a  few 
black  men,  soldiers  and  nurses.  .  .  .  That  perhaps  had 
hurt  Trevor  more  even  than  the  loss  of  his  friends,  and 
such  capacity  for  hatred  as  was  left  in  him  was  vented 
upon  Mr.  Hobday  with  his  Morning  Post,  so  pleased,  so 
excited,  so  exalted  even  while  the  world  which  the  young 
man  was  preparing  to  enter  was  blown  to  Hell.  .  .  . 

Mr.  Hobday  looked  the  part  of  the  John  Bull  patriot 
except  that  he  was  not  ruddy.  He  ought  to  have  been, 
but  his  life  of  hard,  sedentary  work  had  made  his  com- 
plexion a  parchment  grey,  belying  his  native  character, 
which  was  that  of  the  bluff  English  squire.  He  inspired 
awe  in  his  staff,  confidence  in  his  clients,  and  when  he 
said  that  the  war  was  the  summit  of  Great  Britain's 


50  PINK  ROSES 


destiny  there  were  at  least  three  hundred  people  who 
would  accept  that  it  was  so  because  he  could  make  things 
uncomfortable  for  them  if  they  thought  or  tried  to  think 
otherwise.  Trevor  calculated  that  there  must  be  about 
a  million  Mr.  Hobdays  in  Great  Britain,  and  when  he 
multiplied  them  by  the  people  whom  they  would  influ- 
ence he  despaired  of  the  war's  ever  ending. 

On  the  morning  after  the  air-raid  he  found  the  office 
in  a  new  spasm  of  hatred  of  the  Hun.  Work  had  ceased 
while  a  symposium  was  held  on  the  question  of  reprisals. 
The  cashier,  a  thin,  weedy  little  man  with  a  voice  like 
a  captive  raven,  said: 

"We  must  give  them  Hell!  Bomb  Dusseldorf,  bomb 
Cologne,  bomb  Berlin !  " 

And  the  Common  Law  managing-clerk,  who  had  an 
ingenious  mind  developed  by  long  practice  in  annoying 
legal  opponents,  suggested  that  German  prisoners  should 
be  returned  to  the  Fatherland  by  aeroplane,  two  of  them 
tied  together  for  every  civilian  killed,  three  for  every 
woman,  four  for  every  child,  and  dropped  into  the 
streets  of  the  Rhine  towns. 

Mr.  Hobday  came  in  at  that  moment  and  applauded 
the  suggestion. 

"  Very  good,  Mr.  Barnes.  Very  good.  I'll  write  to 
the  War  Office  about  it." 

Trevor  had  left  the  group  as  Mr.  Hobday  came  in. 
He  could  not  stand  the  man  on  these  occasions. 

In  Mr.  Robert's  absence  Trevor  had  been  allowed  to 
use  his  room.  Mr.  Hobday  looked  in  and  said : 

"  Trevor,  I  want  to  speak  to  you  a  moment." 

Trevor  followed  him  into  his  sanctum.  Mr.  Hobday, 
with  the  rudeness  which  inspired  so  much  confidence  in 
clients,  kept  him  standing  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour  while 


HOBDAY,  TREVES  AND  TREVES  51 

he  unfolded  the  Morning  Post  and  laid  it  open  at  the 
leading  article,  on  his  letter-basket,  and  Trevor 
thought : 

"  This  is  all  so  out-of-date.  People  don't  behave  like 
this  any  more.  There  isn't  time  for  it,  and  the  world 
doesn't  want  important  people." 

Mr.  Hobday  coughed. 

"  You  were  late  again  this  morning." 

"  Yes." 

"  I  happened  to  look  into  Mr.  Robert's  room.  On 
your  desk  I  found  a  novel  of  a  character  of  which  I 
cannot  approve,  a  few  serious  historical  works,  a  volume 
of  poems,  and  a  number  of  type-written  sheets  of  what 
appeared  to  be  verses." 

"  Yes." 

"  Ordinarily  I  have  made  it  and  have  kept  it  as  a  rule 
not  to  interfere  with  my  articled  clerks.  We  give  them 
the  entry  to  our  business  and  they  learn  or  not  as  they 
please.  .  .  .  Your  father  is  a  very  old  friend  of  mine. 
We  were  articled  together  here  in  this  office." 

"  Yes." 

"  In  those  days  young  men  worked." 

"  Yes." 

"  Now  young  men  are  fighting  for  what  we  worked 
for." 

Trevor  looked  steadily  at  Mr.  Hobday,  marked  his 
ample  waistcoat,  his  swelling  neck  that  thrust  out  the 
lobes  of  his  ears,  his  staring,  expressionless  eyes,  and  he 
could  not  help  remarking: 

"  But — we  don't  like  what  you  worked  for.  We  don't 
want  it." 

Then  he  gasped,  not  at  his  own  audacity,  but  at  the 
suddenness  of  this  expression  of  his  deepest  and  most 


52  PINK  ROSES 


hidden  thought.  He  knew  that  he  had  stumbled  on  a 
profound  truth.  Mr.  Hobday's  eyes  started  out  of  his 
head.  His  fat  hands  fumbled  in  the  air  for  a  moment, 
then  reached  out  for  the  Morning  Post,  to  which  they 
clung  for  comfort.  ...  It  was  a  terrible  and  yet  a 
delicious  moment.  Mr.  Hobday  could  not  face  it.  After 
a  gulp  or  two,  he  said: 

"  You  are  to  be  pitied,  Trevor.  I  pity  you.  It  is  of 
course  not  my  affair  what  you  choose  to  do,  but,  if  you 
are  going  to  continue  to  put  in  an  appearance  here,  I 
must  ask  you  to  observe  the  hours  of  the  office,  which  are 
from  9  a.m.  to  6  p.m.,  and  if  you  do  propose  to  occupy 
Robert  Treves's  chair  while  he,  like  a  man,  is  doing  his 
duty,  I  trust  that  you  will  study  the  Law  and  put  frivoli- 
ties from  your  mind."  He  paused,  and  then  with  a  more 
kindly  indulgence  resumed :  "  Come,  come,  Trevor.  You 
will  inherit  a  great  business,  a  great  position.  In  the 
reconstruction  of  the  old  country  you  should  play  a  great 
part.  The  Law  has  made  England  what  she  is.  We  are 
fighting  for  the  Law.  .  .  ." 

"  Against  humanity,"  thought  Trevor  with  a  flick  of 
his  mind  which  made  him  realize  that  it  was  no  good  his 
saying  anything  more.  What  he  had  already  said  had 
hurt  Mr.  Hobday,  but  had  produced  no  further  impres- 
sion. 

"  There  must  be  an  end  to  this  slackness,"  said  the 
Head  of  the  Firm.  "  Any  man  who  slacks  now  is  not 
earning  his  keep.  We  need  all  the  hands  we  can  get  in 
this  big  African  case.  ...  If  you  don't  propose  to 
help  us  with  that  then  I  propose  to  use  my  influence 
with  the  War  Office  to  obtain  you  some  work — with  a 
commission,  of  course — which  can  be  done  by  an  unfit 
man.  After  all,  it  is  hardly  fair  that  you  should  be 


HOBDAY,  TREVES  AND  TREVES  53 

allowed  to  finish  your  articles  while  thousands  of  young 
men  have  theirs  suspended.  .  .  .  Equality  of  sacrifice, 
you  know.  We  must  all  suffer  for  our  country's  good. 
.  .  .  Two  of  the  clerks  are  going,  and  it  is  work  that 
would  interest  you  and  would  be  a  very  valuable  experi- 
ence. It  is  a  case  in  which — ah ! — millions  are  involved." 

"  History,"  said  Trevor,  "  has  become  a  matter  of 
millions." 

"  I  am  not  jesting,"  said  Mr.  Hobday  severely,  and 
Trevor,  who  was  really  interested  in  the  train  of  thought 
that  he  had  started,  strove  to  explain: 

"  I  only  meant  that  the  individual  is  swamped.  There 
is  a  point  at  which  the  mind  cannot  take  in  anything 
further." 

Mr.  Hobday  smiled  indulgently: 

"  Ah !  "  he  said.  "  We  are  suffering  from  neglect. 
After  all,  it  is  perhaps  a  good  thing  that  a  young  man  of 
position  here  and  there  should  be  spared.  A  good  year's 
work  now  for  the  remainder  of  your  articles  will  be  the 
making  of  you.  Who  knows?  Perhaps  by  then  we  shall 
have  won  our  case  and  the  war,  and  the  good  relations 
of  this  firm  and  your  own  will  continue.  There  is  no 
more  public-spirited  and  patriotic  profession  than  that  to 
which  we  have  the  honour  to  belong.  ...  If  you  will 
go  to  Mr.  Barnes  now  he  will  be  glad  of  your  assistance 
in  bringing  the  briefs  in  our  African  case  up  to  date. 
.  .  .  Good  morning !  Good  morning !  " 

Trevor  withdrew  in  a  state  of  eruption.  Mr.  Hob- 
day's completely  innocent  lack  of  scruple  baffled  him. 
Either  the  War  Office  or  the  African  case!  .  .  .  But 
how  exactly  typical!  In  the  Hobday  world  one  must 
work  for  the  comfort  or  the  protection  of  Hobday.  In 
fact,  it  was  Hobday  and  not  the  world  that  mattered, 


54  PINK  ROSES 


and  it  was  for  the  Hobdays  that  young  men  were  left 
friendless,  ambitionless,  and  dispirited. 

His  first  impulse  was  to  fling  out  of  the  office  then  and 
there;  but  then  he  reflected  that  it  was  only  for  a  year, 
and  that  if  he  did  obey  his  impulse  it  would  mean  good- 
bye to  London,  and  stagnation  in  the  even  more  uncon- 
genial atmosphere  of  the  manufacturing  North.  He  sat 
in  Mr.  Robert's  room  for  a  long  time  wrestling  it  out, 
and  came  at  last  to  the  conclusion  that  he  was  an  idiot 
for  being  so  angry  about  it.  Lawyers  were  a  hopelessly 
narrow  and  cloistered  class  who  were  absolutely  inca- 
pable of  realizing  that  the  world  had  passed  them  long 
ago,  and  even  in  its  disputes  was  gradually  learning  to  do 
without  them. 

While  Trevor  cogitated  Mr.  Hobday  wrote  a  friendly 
letter  to  his  father,  in  which  he  said : 

"  The  boy  is  sound  at  heart,  sound  as  a  bell.  He  was 
very  badly  hit  by  his  rejection  from  the  Army,  but  he 
has  picked  up  bravely,  and  after  some  friendly  discussion 
with  myself  has  come  to  the  conclusion  that  he  can  best 
serve  his  country  by  preparing  to  follow  in  his  father's 
footsteps.  I  am  wasting  a  good  deal  of  my  time  on  a 
Tribunal  listening  to  cowardly  riff-raff  who  cannot  think 
impersonally  even  in  a,  grave  national  crisis  and  in  cer- 
tain other  directions — of  which  I  am  not  at  liberty  to 
speak.  I  am  making  myself  felt.  If  the  war  continues, 
that  is,  if  victory  should  be  long  in  coming,  I  should  be 
able  to  place  the  boy  where  he  could  gain  both  valuable 
experience  and  invaluable  influence.  ..." 

The  river  must  flow  along  its  bed,  but  Trevor  was  con- 
scious of  a  new  source  of  vitality  for  which  he  could 
find  no  pleasing  course.  He  was  out  of  the  war,  was  no 
longer  even  emotionally  engaged  in  it,  and  had  begun  to 


HOBDAY,  TREVES  AND  TREVES     55 

realize  that  he  was  condemned  to  speak  an  unintelligible 
language  since  he  had  no  dogma  of  any  kind.  .  .  . 
Even  Harry  Hardman  had  had  his  dogma: 

"  A  generation's  got  to  go  so  that  all  the  subsequent 
generations  may  be  free." 

That  had  once  satisfied  him  too,  but  it  did  so  no 
longer.  The  tragedy  had  overstepped  the  capacity  of  the 
human  mind.  Everybody  was  lying.  It  was  better,  there- 
fore, to  keep  silent,  and  he  was  sorry  he  had  told  Mr. 
Hobday  the  only  truth  he  knew,  which  was  that  he  and 
his  contemporaries  had  never  wanted  the  world  for 
which  Mr.  Hobday  and  his  contemporaries  had  worked. 

For  the  present  Cora  was  a  sufficient  answer  to  all  that 
— Cora,  and  Sydney,  and  Mr.  Ysnaga,  and  the  old  man 
with  his  little  dogs. 

Elated  by  the  still  tingling  satisfaction  of  that  Experi- 
ence, Trevor  went  to  the  other  end  of  the  vast,  dingy 
suite  of  offices  to  Mr.  Barnes's  room. 

"  Hello !  Barnes,"  he  said.  "  Mr.  Hobday  has  asked 
me  to  help  you  with  your  big  case.  Terrible  waste  of 
money  in  war-time,  isn't  it?" 

Mr.  Barnes  was  a  snuffy,  keen  little  man  with  a  brown 
moustache  and  eyebrows  that  were  almost  moustachios, 
beneath  which  peeped  and  darted  two  little  short-sighted 
brown  eyes.  He  had  hardly  any  nose  with  which  to  sup- 
port his  pince-nez,  which  he  wore  impatiently  rammed 
down  almost  to  his  nostrils.  Even  then  they  slipped 
about,  and  had  made  blood-red  furrows  on  either  side  of 
his  nose. 

"Waste?  Waste?  .  .  .  It's  got  to  be  settled  before 
the  war's  over  or  there'll  be  German  money  working  on 
the  other  side.  If  we  lost  a  case  like  this  it  would  be  as 
bad  as  losing  the  war.  .  .  .  It's  British  money  and  a 


56  PINK  ROSES 


good  title  against  German  money  and  hanky-panky. 
...  If  you're  going  to  help,  pull  up  your  shirt-sleeves 
and  buckle  to." 

Trevor  drew  up  a  chair  to  the  table  and  began  to  finger 
the  mountainous  pile  of  papers,  briefs,  proofs,  maps, 
reports,  accounts.  He  liked  Mr.  Barnes's  enthusiasm. 

"  It's  a  big  fight,"  said  the  little  man.  "  It's  years 
since  I  had  such  a  big  fight,  but  there  aren't  the  men  at 
the  Bar  now  that  there  were  in  the  old  days.  Nothing 
like  it.  The  Law's  getting  too  technical.  That's  what 
it  is.  And  the  big  men  at  the  Bar  have  to  specialize. 
The  big  money's  for  the  man  with  a  head  for  figures. 
.  .  .  What  I  used  to  love  was  a  straight  fight  without 
any  law  in  it  to  speak  of,  just  a  little  skirmishing  on 
pleadings,  and  then  a  knock-out  in  cross-examination. 
But  pleadings  aren't  what  they  were,  and  these  new  men 
can't  cross-examine  for  nuts.  They're  afraid  of  hurting 
anybody's  feelings.  .  .  .  You  can  make  yourself  very 
useful  on  this,  Mr.  Mathew.  I  always  think  myself 
that's  it's  a  good  thing  for  an  article  to  make  himself 
useful.  You  never  know  where  it's  going  to  come  in 
when  you  practice  yourself."  .  .  . 

Trevor  was  soon  immersed  in  the  papers,  reading 
figures  which  made  his  head  swim,  and  struggling  to  find 
some  coherence  in  the  long  tale  of  concessions  and  pros- 
pector's rights  and  licenses  and  flotations,  registrations, 
and  at  last  he  began  to  perceive  that  the  dispute  was  over 
a  piece  of  land  about  twice  the  size  of  Yorkshire,  on 
which  there  were  or  were  going  to  be  or  were  said  to  be 
gold-mines,  copper-mines,  and  behind  this  particular  dis- 
pute there  was  a  long  history  of  disputes  which  had  been 
settled,  some  in  Court,  some  by  arbitration,  some  by  vio- 
lent financial  means,  until  at  last  one  set  of  interests  was 


HOBDAY,  TREVES  AND  TREVES  57 

grouped  against  another.  .  .  .  Millions  of  money  had 
already  changed  hands,  several  companies  had  been 
floated  and  wound  up,  but  what  struck  Trevor  as  extraor- 
dinary was  that  in  twenty  years  neither  gold  nor  copper 
had  been  forthcoming.  Apparently  one  company  after 
another  had  spent  its  subscription  in  litigation  and  had 
disappeared  or  been  merged  in  another  company  which 
took  up  the  struggle. 

"  A  big  fight,  eh?  "  chuckled  Mr.  Barnes. 

"  Devilish  big,"  replied  Trevor.  "  I  can't  size  it  up 
yet." 

"  Of  course  you  can't.  You  just  let  it  soak  you  up, 
and  then  you  can't  think  of  anything  else.  .  .  . 
There's  big  money  behind  it  and  big  men.  I  often  lie 
awake  and  think  how  wonderful  it  is  that  this  sort  of 
thing  is  going  on  all  over  the  world  to  keep  old  London 
going,  and  little  me  sitting  in  a  quiet  room  fighting  it  out 
for  'em,  for  the  men  who've  risked  their  money  and  the 
men  who  have  risked  their  lives." 

"  Money  first  ?  "  asked  Trevor  with  a  smile.  He  was 
beginning  to  enjoy  himself  immensely.  There  was  some- 
thing delightfully  innocent  about  these  good  people  who 
had  the  newspapers  as  a  screen  between  themselves  and 
facts. 

"Well,  not  exactly  that,"  replied  Mr.  Barnes.  "I 
didn't  mean  to  convey  that,  but  if  a  man  loses  his  life — 
well,  there's  an  end  of  it;  but  if  he  loses  his  money — 
well — he  wants  to  know  about  it." 

"  How  long  will  the  case  take  ?  " 

"  Three  months,  perhaps  longer.  It  certainly  won't 
be  finished  this  term,  and  then  there's  sure  to  be  an 
appeal,  and  with  luck  we  shall  carry  it  to  the  House  of 
Lords." 


58  PINK  ROSES 


"Years,  then?" 

"Oh!  certainly." 

Trevor  sank  back  into  his  work  on  the  vast  pile  of 
documents,  wishing  that  he  could  share  or  even  begin  to 
understand  Mr.  Barnes's  enthusiasm,  but  any  human  or 
personal  interest  there  might  ever  have  been  in  the  affair 
had  disappeared,  and  it  had  become  a  long  confused 
struggle  between  rival  organizations.  There  was  a  pile 
of  Counsel's  opinions  about  as  long  as  the  Origin  of 
Species,  and  Trevor  decided  to  begin  on  that,  but  he  was 
soon  floundering,  for  there  was  little  concern  for  facts 
in  these  type-written  sheets.  Indeed,  he  could  not  find 
much  else  but  innumerable  references  to  cases. 

"  These  don't  seem  to  be  of  much  value,"  he  said. 

"  No.  But  we  have  to  consult  Counsel.  We  can't 
put  ourselves  in  the  wrong,  you  know.  ..." 

"  How  am  I  to  get  the  hang  of  it?" 

"  Why  should  you?  All  you  want  out  of  it  is  experi- 
ence of  practice.  .  .  .  You  can  have  my  notes  if  you 
like.  They  were  made  fifteen  years  ago." 

Mr.  Barnes  took  a  shabby  little  black  book  out  of  a 
drawer  and  threw  it  over  to  Trevor,  who  in  ten  minutes 
knew  exactly  what  the  case  was  about,  and  that  a  certain 
native  tribe  in  Northern  Rhodesia  had  sold  a  certain  con- 
cession twice  to  different  speculators.  That  was  the 
fact:  the  rest  was  Law. 

In  the  correspondence  he  was  interested  to  find  the 
name  of  Mr.  Jose  Ysnaga,  who  had  apparently  played 
a  considerable  part  in  the  flotation  of  one  of  the  original 
and  now  defunct  companies. 

"  That's  a  funny  name,"  he  said.    "  Ysnaga." 

"  Mr.  Jose  Ysnaga.  Oh  yes.  We  know  him.  There 
aren't  many  solicitors  in  town  who  don't  know  him.  If 


HOBDAY,  TREVES  AND  TREVES  59 

you  want  to  know  What's  What  behind  Who's  Who  ask 
Mr.  Barnes  of  Hobday's.  It's  a  quiet  firm,  but  deep." 

Trevor  decided  that  he  had  certainly  been  wasting  his 
time  with  his  academic  treatment  of  the  Law.  The 
thought  of  the  bland,  accomplished  Ysnaga  flooded  the 
whole  of  this  dusty  case  with  romance,  and  he  surveyed 
the  pile  of  documents  with  admiration.  They  were  in  a 
sense  the  creation  of  the  wonderful  Ysnaga,  his  gift,  his 
legacy  to  the  world  as  he  swept  on  in  brilliant  and  suc- 
cessful manipulation  of  the  world's  resources. 

"  He  was  in  prison  when  the  war  began,"  he  said. 

"  Was  he  ?    How  do  you  know  that  ?  " 

"  From  a  friend  of  his.  He  is  a  Government  con- 
tractor now,  and  has  two  factories  at  Bow." 

Mr.  Barnes  leaned  back  in  his  chair  and  roared  with 
laughter. 


V 
RAKE'S  PROGRESS 

IN  conversation  with  Sydney,  Trevor  admitted  that  he 
was  in  love  with  Cora  Dinmont,  and  Sydney,  after  a 
saucer  of  milk,  was  sympathetic  and  listened  with  his 
ears  cocked  as  he  lay  on  his  master's  stomach  and  en- 
joyed the  rumbling  of  his  voice  as  it  came  out.  So  com- 
plete was  Trevor's  satisfaction  with  the  sudden  transmu- 
tation of  his  existence  that  he  had  no  doubt  that  it  was 
permanent.  He  dined  with  Cora  once  a  week  and  once  a 
week  they  walked  in  the  Park  and  listened  to  the  band, 
and  enjoyed  watching  the  shifting  crowd  under  the  trees. 
Somehow  the  people  did  not  look  as  if  they  were  part  of 
the  place.  They  seemed  transitory  and  almost  ghoulish, 
and  very  often  people  in  the  street  had  this  effect  on 
Trevor.  They  were  like  people  who  had  returned  from 
some  forgotten  period  of  time,  like  people  caught  in 
Time  and  hungering  wistfully  for  eternity,  and  to  make 
themselves  easy  trying  one  masquerade  after  another. 
.  .  .  This  was  especially  noticeable  on  Flag  Days,  but 
perhaps  it  was  only  the  fantastic  costumes  and  uniforms, 
perhaps  it  was  because  of  the  vast  number  of  temporary 
buildings  that  had  sprung  up  in  London.  Many  of 
Trevor's  acquaintances  had  gone  to  work  in  temporary 
buildings,  and  they  all  acquired  that  temporary,  transi- 
tory appearance. 

But  Cora  Dinmont  was  permanent. 

He  took  her  to  his  rooms,  and  her  presence  clung 

60 


RAKE'S  PROGRESS  61 

about  them  so  that  he  was  no  longer  tortured  by  the 
absence  of  his  friends,  and  she  too  had  shed  an  existence 
the  thought  of  which  was  painful  to  her.  She  made  him 
talk  at  first  because  she  loved  the  sound  of  his  voice,  but 
after  a  time  she  began  to  want  to  understand  what  he 
said,  and  he  endeavoured  to  simplify  his  utterances  and 
in  so  doing  realized  how  remote  all  his  thoughts  had  been 
from  actuality.  It  was  not  so  easy  to  speak  his  heart 
out  as  he  had  imagined,  though  it  was  very  easy  to  utter 
the  shadows  of  reflections.  ...  He  read  Hardman's 
poems  to  Cora  and  was  ashamed  of  them  rather  than  of 
her.  They  were  in  a  faded  tradition,  an  almost  incon- 
ceivably remote  echo  of  Donne  and  Marvell.  They  were 
about  the  war,  but,  like  the  war-people,  they  were  tran- 
sitory and  temporary — and  he  had  undertaken  to  see 
them  through  the  press. 

At  first  he  was  rather  shy  of  telling  Cora  that  he  loved 
her  and  Sydney  had  the  benefit  of  his  declarations,  but 
as  she  became  more  and  more  inflamed  with  him  such 
speech  was  easier  and  he  even  began  to  tell  her  lover's 
nonsense.  She  was  intoxicated  with  it,  and  was  com- 
pletely and  fearlessly  infatuated  with  him.  He  made  her 
laugh,  and  her  relations  with  men  had  always  been 
serious  not  to  say  ponderous,  especially  since  the  war, 
and  she  was  glad  not  to  paint  her  face  any  more  and  no 
longer  to  be  looking  for  clothes  which  attract  attention, 
but  to  be  able  to  dress  in  what  would  please  him — quiet 
things,  good  things,  for  he  was  good  and  quiet  and  she 
wanted  to  be  so  too. 

He  was  so  good  and  quiet  that  she  had  no  difficulty. 
in  fathoming  his  existence — the  rich,  easy  house  at  home 
in  the  suburbs  of  a  northern  town,  his  studious  and 
gentlemanly  existence  at  Cambridge  and  in  London,  his 


62  PINK  ROSES 


vagrant  attendance  at  the  office  and — herself.  She  was 
the  first.  His  beard  was  hardly  grown  and  she  was  the 
first!  Nothing  could  take  that  from  her,  and  no  other 
woman  could  ever  be  to  him  what  she  had  been,  to  no 
other  woman  would  he  turn  with  that  childishly  pathetic 
gratitude. 

The  bare  thought  of  any  other  woman  roused  jealousy 
in  her,  and  she  became  assiduous  in  her  pursuit  of  him, 
and  after  a  long  and  very  honest  struggle  against  it  the 
thought  of  marriage  took  possession  of  her.  There  was 
no  reason  why  she  should  not  have  children,  and  who 
was  to  know  anything  about  her?  .  .  .  She  began  to 
want  a  house  and  to  imagine  herself  keeping  it — ever  so 
efficiently  for  him.  Where  he  would  have  to  live  was 
far  away  from  London,  and  no  one  would  know  her 
there.  She  would  have  a  house  with  linen  and  plate  and 
thick  carpets  and  red  paper  on  the  dining-room  walls, 
and  a  little  car  perhaps,  and  a  garden  with  roses,  pink 
roses,  because  he  was  so  fond  of  them. 

She  often  talked  to  him,  not  very  truthfully,  about  her 
own  home  life  in  a  little  country  town  not  a  hundred 
miles  away,  and  as  the  summer  wore  on  she  had  per- 
suaded herself  that  she  was  sick  with  longing  for  the 
old  place — the  old  bridge  over  the  river  and  the  market- 
square  and  the  Corn  Exchange,  where  they  sometimes 
had  plays — and  then  she  would  ask  him  rather  shyly : 

"Are  you  going  home  this  summer?" 

"  Not  i  •  I  can  help  it.  I  don't  want  to  go  home.  I 
shall  have  too  much  of  it  later  on.  I  want  to  take  you 
away  out  of  this.  Where  do  you  usually  go  in  the 
summer  ?  " 

"  It  used  to  be  Ostend  before  the  war.  Now  it's 
Brighton  or  Southend  or  Margate." 


RAKE'S  PROGRESS  63 

"  I  hate  those  places.  .  .  .  What  do  you  say  to  our 
taking  a  cottage  together  on  the  Coast?  We  could  take 
Estelle  and  have  a  three  weeks'  real  honeymoon.  Besides, 
the  sea  air  would  be  good  for  Sydney.  I  am  anxious 
about  his  back  legs;  they  don't  seem  to  work  properly." 

They  were  in  his  rooms.  Cora  seized  Sydney  and 
danced  about  with  him  and  hugged  him  so  tight  that  he 
howled.  Then  she  kissed  and  fondled  him  and  held  him 
out  for  Trevor  to  caress. 

"  Me  too !  "  she  said,  and  Trevor  had  to  caress  her 
also.  He  was  enchanted  with  her,  and  had  no  suspicion 
that  she  was  not  in  the  same  condition  of  childish  glee. 
He  did  not  wish  the  relationship  to  be  different  in  any 
way.  For  him  it  was  perfect  as  it  was.  There  was,  so 
far  as  he  knew,  no  question  of  money  or  obligation  of 
any  kind.  She  was  discreet  and  never  made  any  attempt 
to  intrude  upon  him,  never  came  to  his  rooms  uninvited, 
never  rang  him  up  at  the  office,  where  he  now  spent  many 
hours  of  the  day  piecing  together  the  romantic  early  his- 
tory of  Mr.  Jose  Ysnaga  as  revealed  in  otherwise  unin- 
teresting legal  documents. 

For  a  year  his  life  would  consist  of  Cora  and  prepara- 
tion for  his  Final  Examination.  After  that  the  deluge. 
In  a  year  the  war  might  be  over  and  he,  like  every  one 
else,  would  come  blinking  and  gasping  out  of  the  welter 
to  find  out  what  the  world  was  like,  or  to  discover  the 
new  illusions  under  which  the  world  would  elect  to  live- 
Its  old  pre-war  illusions  were  gone  for  ever,  lost  in  the 
one  grand  illusion  of  military  victory.  That  sooner  or 
later  must  break  and  a  new  set  of  illusions  would  arise. 
.  .  .  That  he  could  be  under  any  illusion  with  regard 
to  Cora  Trevor  never  suspected.  She  was  so  completely, 
even  abjectly,  his,  as  to  give  him  an  indomitable  sense  of 


64  PINK  ROSES 


possession.  She  was  as  much  his  as  the  pup,  and  his 
attitude  towards  her  was  of  the  same  order. 

Every  now  and  then,  being  very  acute  and  almost 
uncomfortably  honest,  he  was  haunted  by  a  dim  percep- 
tion that  she  and  the  pup  had  taken  the  place  of  Hard- 
man  and  Peto,  but  he  put  that  idea  from  him  and  when 
it  became  persistent  corrected  it  by  going  to  see  Peto 
in  his  dark  room.  That  was  very  dreadful,  for  Trevor 
now  that  he  had  emerged  from  the  entombment  of  his 
grief,  was  forced  to  realize  that  Peto  had  stopped  on  the 
other  side  of.  the  war,  and  that  it  was  no  use  even  trying 
to  talk  to  him  about  what  was  going  on  in  the  world,  for 
the  world  had  changed  and  Peto  and  these  others,  broken 
in  soul  as  he  was  in  body,  would  never  know  that  it  had 
changed.  They  would  fumble  and  grope  for  a  life  that 
had  for  ever  disappeared — the  life  they  had  fought  for, 
the  life  which  in  righting  they  had  destroyed.  He  could 
not  even  tell  Peto  he  had  bought  a  pup,  for  his  doing 
so  had  been  a  desecration  upon  their  existence  to  which 
there  could  be  no  return.  .  .  .  No;  the  only  way  out 
was  to  read  to  what  was  left  of  Peto,  good  old  stuff  that 
told  of  an  England  that  had  been  English.  Even 
Dickens  was  too  modern :  the  right  stuff  was  Tom  Jones 
and  Humphry  Clinker,  which  in  solid,  healthy  language 
told  of  an  England  that  took  its  wars  as  it  did  its  drink, 
in  a  gentlemanly  fashion,  gouty  in  its  Toryism,  rheu- 
matic in  its  Whiggery.  To  talk  to  Peto  of  London  and 
the  transformation  in  its  life  was  unbearable. 

"  You  know,  Jimmy,"  Trevor  would  say,  "  things 
aren't  the  same." 

And  the  muffled  voice  from  behind  the  bandages 
would  reply: 

"  No.    They  couldn't  be  without  old  Hardman." 


RAKE'S  PROGRESS  65 

That  was  as  far  as  they  got.  Fortunately  Peto's  peo- 
ple were  rich,  and  they  had  a  big  house  down  in  Wales 
to  which  he  could  be  taken.  He  could  sit  there  looking 
at  the  mountains.  They  at  least  would  be  the  same,  and 
Peto  could  believe  that  he  had  been  smashed  up  for 
them. 

But  that  friendship  was  oozing  away,  and  on  the  day 
when  Peto  was  taken  down  to  Wales  Trevor  knew  that 
the  end  would  come.  It,  like  every  other  good  thing, 
would  die  a  violent  and  unnatural  death. 

Sometimes  it  amazed  him  that  Cora  was  so  unmoved 
by  it  all,  and  yet  after  an  hour  or  two  with  his  shattered 
friend  he  had  to  seek  her  out,  succumb  to  the  enchant- 
ment she  had  for  him,  and  forget.  She  always  knew 
when  he  had  been  to  the  nursing  home,  and  was  jealous 
and  outraged  by  the  hysteria  in  him.  Her  extraordinary 
physical  tranquillity  would  make  him  contemptuous  of 
himself,  and  he  wanted  to  be  like  her,  imperturbable  and 
unconscious  of  what  was  happening  in  the  world.  It  was 
either  that  or  another  plunge  into  a  further  agony  in 
which  he  must  endure  all  the  mental  suffering  that  others 
had  avoided  through  plunging  into  action,  the  hideous 
welter  of  questions  to  which  there  was  no  answer,  be- 
cause things  were  being  done  in  which  nobody — nobody 
believed,  because  everybody  without  exception  was  really 
ignorant  of  the  world  in  which  they  lived,  and  everybody 
suddenly  had  begun  to  wrangle  about  purely  external  and 
remote  things.  .  .  .  No.  He  could  not  go  through 
that  again.  History  supplied  him  with  no  clue  except 
that  all  wars  were  maintained  with  lies,  that  all  wars  had 
been  promoted  in  the  name  of  religion,  and  that  religion 
had  been  merged  in  patriotism.  .  .  .  No,  a  thousand 
times  no.  The  answer  to  all  that  was  Cora  Dinmont, 


66  PINK  ROSES 


with  v/hom  there  need  be  no  mental  implication  whatso- 
ever but  only  a  happy  warming  of  the  senses  which  made 
him  strong  enough  to  forget  and  to  begin  again,  know- 
ing that  he  had  been  wrong  to  accept  the  world  as  it  had 
been  before  the  war,  and  that  he  and  his  contemporaries 
should  have  said,  as  he  so  surprisingly  had  said  to  Mr. 
Hobday : 

"  We  don't  want  what  you  have  worked  for." 

That  had  been  perfectly  clear  to  all  of  them,  but  they 
had  been  content  to  wait  until  at  last  the  Hobdays  of 
the  world — for  they  were  all  Kaisers,  every  one  of  them 
— forced  them  to  accept  their  handiwork  in  mud  and 
blood,  forced  them  to  accept  their  infernal  mechanical, 
money-grubbing  organization  and  to  sacrifice  their  youth 
to  preserve  it.  ...  It  was  too  late  now  to  do  anything 
or  to  say  anything.  Protest  in  the  face  of  the  disturb- 
ance of  millions  of  lives  seemed  even  more  indecent  than 
the  thing  itself. 

It  was  after  a  visit  to  Peto  that  he  came  to  a  point  of 
crisis  with  Cora.  Her  jealousy  forced  her  into  such  a 
consuming  possessiveness  that  she  could  not  endure  his 
attention  being  away  from  her  for  a  moment.  She  could 
hardly  suffer  him  to  eat,  but  wanted  his  eyes  upon  her, 
his  hand  reaching  out  for  hers  continually. 

They  had  taken  a  cottage  near  Portsmouth  for  a 
month,  and  she  had  become  very  sentimental  about  it 
and  tried  to  coax  him  into  staying  longer. 

"  I  can't,"  he  said.  "  I  can  only  take  a  month's  holi- 
day. I  have  to  keep  to  the  rules  of  the  office.  Even  Mr. 
Hobday  takes  no  more." 

"But  you're  rich,  aren't  you?" 

"  I  shall  be." 

"  Then  you  can  do  what  you  like." 


RAKE'S  PROGRESS  67 

"  No.  I  can't  ...  if  I'm  working  with  other 
people." 

Cora  was  quick  enough  to  realize  that  she  had  made 
a  mistake,  and  she  covered  it  up  with  a  laugh. 

"  If  I  were  rich  I  should  do  exactly  as  I  pleased.  I 
would." 

"  Yes,"  he  said  with  an  indulgent  smile.  "  That's  the 
whole  point  of  you.  ...  If  we  like  the  cottage  I'll 
take  it  on  and  we'll  go  down  for  week-ends." 

She  was  pleased  with  him  and  said  she  could  borrow 
a  car  for  the  trip. 

"  A  car  ?  "  he  said.  "  But  nobody  has  cars  nowa- 
days." 

"  Oh !  yes,  they  do.    Can  you  drive?  " 

"  I  used  to  have  my  own  car  at  Cambridge." 

She  opened  her  eyes  at  that.  He  was  richer  than  she 
had  thought,  and  she  sat  with  her  eyes  half  closed  dream- 
ing of  the  big  house  she  would  have  with  him  one  day. 
She  would  make  him  so  comfortable  and  so  happy  in  the 
cottage  that  he  would  need  her  always.  .  .  .  He  was 
growing  up  at  an  alarming  rate  and  she  knew  instinc- 
tively that  if  she  did  not  keep  a  tight  hold  on  him  he 
would  slip  away  from  her.  The  life  she  had  lived  had 
left  her  womanly  instincts  practically  intact,  and  the 
woman  in  her  was  fighting  desperately  to  break  through 
the  habits  of  the  automaton.  She  had  at  first  been  sav- 
agely maternal  with  Trevor  and  had  hugged  him  to  her 
as  a  babe  to  her  breast,  but  now  that  he  was  growing  she 
had  to  call  in  deeper  and  subtler  powers,  and  she  lived  in 
anguish  lest  they  should  fail  her.  .  .  .  She  knew  she 
could  riot  drag  him  down  to  the  level  of  the  life  she  had 
lived,  and  she  strove  to  raise  herself  to  his.  She  loved 
him  too  much  to  pretend,  and  she  who  was  consumed 


68  PINK  ROSES 


entirely  in  their  relationship,  dreaded  and  hated  his 
astonishing  capacity  for  sudden  detachment,  and  his 
unvarying  kind,  cool  consideration  for  her.  ...  If 
only  he  would  lose  his  temper  with  her  sometimes.  But 
he  was  always  good-tempered,  and,  as  he  gained  in 
serenity,  humorous  and  kind. 

They  went  to  their  cottage  by  the  sea,  and  he  wrote 
to  his  mother  and  told  her  he  was  going  with  a  party 
of  friends,  back  from  the  front,  and  so  could  not  come 
home  that  summer. 

His  mother,  who  adored  him,  accepted  his  excuse  with 
a  tearful  smile,  and  said  that  dear  Trevor  was  always 
so  devoted  to  his  friends  and  that  in  times  like  these  the 
boys  must  hang  together,  and  it  was  better  for  them  to 
console  each  other  than  to  suffer  the  heart-wrench  of 
visiting  their  homes.  She  wrote  all  this,  and  more,  to 
Trevor,  and  told  him  that  it  was  certainly  his  duty, 
being  spared  the  agony  of  the  trenches,  to  do  all  he 
could  for  his  dear,  brave  friends. 

Trevor  excused  himself  on  the  ground  that  it  was  bet- 
ter for  his  mother  to  have  him  restored  to  some  kind  of 
sanity,  than  reduced  to  a  frozen  and  insensible  imbe- 
cility by  the  mental  strain  which  was  as  bad,  if  not 
worse,  than  the  physical  strain  of  the  trenches,  the  hor- 
ror of  knowing  that  the  mind  of  a  whole  generation  had 
been  put  out  of  action.  No  one  else  seemed  to  think  of 
that  which  to  him  was  the  hardest  thing  to  face. 

He  felt  it  even  more  in  the  country  than  in  London. 
There  were  no  young  men  in  the  fields,  none  at  the  fish- 
ing harbour,  at  which  a  movie  was  stationed.  It  was 
not  long  before  the  officers  on  board  discovered  Cora, 
and  began  to  visit  the  cottage,  and,  to  Trevor's  disgust,' 
they  knew  her  for  what  she  was,  or  had  been,  and  made 


RAKE'S  PROGRESS  69 

no  concealment  of  their  knowledge.  She  got  in  drinks 
for  them,  and  they  turned  the  cottage  into  a  kind  of  pri- 
vate public-house.  Their  behaviour  and  her  easiness 
with  them  made  Trevor  realize  that  he  had  idealised  her, 
and  he  could  not  help  continuing  to  do  so,  though  he  was 
angry  with  her  failure  to  check  or  even  to  perceive  their 
impertinence.  She  never  said  anything  to  which  he 
could  take  exception,  and  when  they  talked  of  what  they 
considered  the  marvels  of  the  West  End  of  London  she 
never  gave  any  sign  of  being  familiar  with  them,  but  all 
the  same  they  knew  and.  they  did  not  conceal  their  envy 
of  Trevor  and  what  they  regarded  as  his  boldness.  They 
thought  him  a  queer  fish,  and  congratulated  him  on  his 
luck  on  being  out  of  uniform. 

Except  for  their  attentions  he  enjoyed  himself  as  he 
had  never  done  in  his  life  before.  He  had  always  been 
secretly  a  little  afraid  of  the  sea,  but  now  he  could  sur- 
render to  it,  let  it  pick  him  up  and  thwack  him  down  on 
the  sands,  roll  over  him,  knock  the  wind  out  of  him,  and 
he  would  just  give  in  and  roar  with  laughter.  .  .  .  He 
had  always  rather  hated  the  wind,  but  now  he  loved  to 
stand  and  let  it  batter  at  him  and,  when  he  tried  to  shout 
into  it,  sweep  the  words  away  from  his  lips,  and  the 
salty  moisture  of  the  air  soothed  and  delighted  him  as  it 
browned  his  face,  neck  and  hands.  .  .  .  And  Cora  was 
such  a  wonderful  joke  in  this  setting.  She  could  not  be 
induced  to  go  into  the  sea;  she  sulked  when  the  wind 
disturbed  her  coiffure,  and  even  on  the  sands  she  would 
wear  nothing  save  high-heeled  shoes,  but  in  a  world 
where  it  had  become  incongruous  for  a  young  man  to 
be  alive  he  rejoiced  in  her  incongruity. 

That  came  out  strongly  in  the  cottage  also,  which  was 
very  old  and  furnished  by  some  amateur  of  village  life 


70  PINK  ROSES 


with  real  oak,  warming-pans,  brass,  Chelsea  china,  and 
pretty  chintz.  Cora  and  Estelle,  whose  atmosphere  was 
that  of  Leicester  Square,  were  ludicrous  in  it,  and  they 
could  not  adapt  themselves.  Cora  was  admirably  domes- 
tic, but  Estelle  frankly  and  whole-heartedly  disap- 
proved. The  staleness  of  a  life  of  habit  overwhelmed 
her,  and  she  was  only  cheerful  when  the  officers  from 
the  movie  came  in.  Then  she  could  produce  wine, 
liqueurs,  and  cigars  and  be  herself,  beaming  and  approv- 
ing, her  wide  smile  in  itself  an  invitation  and  an  act  of 
cajolery.  Her  manner  often  made  it  quite  clear  that  she 
thought  her  mistress  was  making  a  fool  of  herself,  and 
she  shrewdly  suspected  the  truth  that  Cora  was  not  mak- 
ing a  penny  out  of  her  young  man.  .  .  .  During  the 
whole  month  at  the  sea  Cora  never  went  near  a  shop, 
never  bought  so  much  as  a  pair  of  stockings.  Clearly 
something  must  be  very  wrong!  Long  before  the 
month  was  up  Estelle  had  begun  to  sulk  and  was  even 
rude  to  Trevor,  who  understood  at  last  that  she,  having 
lost  her  "  presents,"  expected  them  from  him.  He  gave 
her  ten  pounds  to  cover  arrears  and  was  astonished 
when  she  was  not  melted  into  gratitude. 

She  said,  "  Merci,  M'sieu,"  with  a  contemptuous  curl 
of  the  lip  which  hurt  and  rather  horrified  Trevor.  He 
realized  that  he  had  made  a  fool  of  himself  by  introduc- 
ing money,  even  indirectly,  between  himself  and  Cora 
and  also,  with  a  shock,  how  serious  was  the  financial  loss 
which  he  had  inflicted  on  Estelle.  Further,  it  was  borne 
in  upon  his  astonished  mind  how  impossible  it  was  for 
him  to  give  the  mistress  a  present  which  the  maid  would 
not  despise. 

From  that  time  on  he  was  acutely  conscious  of  Estelle 
and  knew  in  his  heart  that  she  despised  him,  and  he  was 


RAKE'S  PROGRESS  71 

continually  puzzling  his  brain  to  find  out  why.  He  knew 
instinctively  that  it  was  justified,  but  in  his  search  for 
an  explanation  could  get  no  further  than  a  rather  bewil- 
dered admission  that  to  be  good-tempered,  gentlemanly, 
and  scholarly  was  not  an  infallible  recipe  for  life.  The 
world,  as  now  revealed  to  him,  was  rather  overfull  of 
women,  and  they  demanded  something  more.  As  a  sub- 
stitute for  his  friends  Sydney  was  a  greater  success  than 
Cora,  and  Cora  was  jealous  of  Sydney,  who  was  bliss- 
fully happy  when  Trevor  threw  stones  for  him  on  the 
seashore,  but  when  he  asked  the  woman  to  do  it  for  him 
she  threw  them  at  him.  As  for  Estelle,  Sydney  desired  a 
world  full  of  corners,  round  which  to  run  away  from  her. 

But  on  the  whole  the  month  at  the  sea  was  a  success. 
It  brought  out  for  Trevor  both  the  good  and  the  bad 
of  the  incongruous  liaison  upon  which  he  had  entered. 
It  gave  Cora  hope  that  she  would  realize  her  ambitions 
to  be  a  respectable  married  lady,  and  Estelle  had  gleaned 
that,  though  he  did  not  part  with  it,  yet  Trevor  had 
money,  and  she  was  not  without  hope  that  things  might 
shortly  be  put  on  a  business  footing.  Perhaps  after  all 
her  mistress  was  cleverer  than  she  thought,  and  being 
English,  knew  how  to  deal  with  English  innocence. 

Cora  had  been  unable  to  fulfil  her  promise  to  procure 
a  car  to  take  them  down,  but  when  the  time  came  for  the 
return  to  London  a  magnificent  car  appeared,  driven  by 
a  black  chauffeur;  and,  though  Trevor  was  uneasy  about 
using  it,  she  said  that  it  was  all  right  and  belonged  to  a 
friend  of  hers  who  often  lent  it  to  her,  and,  not  sorry  to 
be  saved  from  the  discomfort  of  a  journey  in  a  train  full 
of  soldiers,  Trevor  climbed  into  the  tonneau  and  sat  with 
Sydney  on  his  lap,  his  hand  held  firmly  in  Cora's  lap, 
staring  drowsily  at  the  coloured  maid  and  the  negro 


72  PINK  ROSES 


chauffeur,  who  were  engaged  in  incessant  animated 
chatter.  .  .  .  Here  again  was  incongruity!  Trevor 
Mathew,  articled  clerk,  sceptic  and  anti-patriot,  being 
conveyed  with  his  inamorata  in  a  car,  so  magnificent  that 
only  the  most  active  patriotism  could  have  earned  it  in 
war-time,  through  the  lovely  somnolent  southern  Eng- 
lish countryside,  over  which  a  spell  seemed  to  have  been 
cast  so  that  it  was  as  though  all  hope  had  gone  of  its 
ever  waking  from  its  slumber.  The  soul  had  gone  out 
of  it.  Soldiers  had  trampled  its  commons  and  heather 
into  dust.  Its  woods  had  been  devastated.  Its  smooth 
roads  had  been  broken  up  by  excessive  and  increasing 
traffic.  ...  A  dead  countryside.  ...  A  brilliant 
machine  darting  through  it  back  to  the  seething  vat  of 
new  life  in  London.  .  .  .  There  was  a  keen  satisfac- 
tion in  the  powerful  machine,  in  which  Cora  was  cer- 
tainly appropriate.  It  was  he  here  who  was  out  of  place, 
and  this  again  he  enjoyed.  Life  had  become  so  tragic 
that  it  could  no  longer  produce  anything  serious,  but  it 
could  and  did  evolve  some  wonderful  jokes. 


VI 
LONDON 

THE  car  glided  through  the  mean  streets  by  which  Lon- 
don is  approached  from  the  south,  swung  over  West- 
minster Bridge,  and  swept  commandingly  up  Whitehall, 
where  people  turned  and  gazed  with  admiration  and 
surprise. 

"  I  expect  they  take  me  for  the  Commander  of  the 
Turcos,"  said  Trevor,  and  Cora  slapped  his  hand  and 
laughed. 

"  You  are  almost  as  brown  as  a  Turco,"  she  said.  "  I 
have  had  a  lovely  time.  I  shan't  like  my  stuffy  little  flat 
after  that  sweet  cottage.  I  wish  you'd  take  me  home 
with  you.  I  don't  want  to  be  without  you,  Boy.  .  .  . 
Why  should  I  be?  .  .  .If  you've  got  money  you  can 
make  heaps  more.  We  could  have  a  lovely  time.  .  .  ." 

"  We  were  very  happy  as  we  were." 

"  But  we  hadn't  been  together  then — I  can't  bear  the 
idea  of  your  going  away.  .  .  .  Don't  go,  Boy.  .  .  . 
Don't  go.  Stay  with  me  to-night,  and  then  we  can  talk 
it  out  to-morrow.  ..." 

"  They're  expecting  me." 

"  Stay  and  have  supper,  then." 

He  consented  to  do  that,  for  he  was  reluctant  to  ter- 
minate what  had  been  his  first  complete  experience,  his 
first  period  of  real  intimacy  with  another  human  being, 
and  the  idea  of  returning  to  his  solitude  had  become 
repugnant  to  him. 

73 


74  PINK  ROSES 


When  the  car  stopped  it  seemed  at  least  three  times 
too  big  for  Gerrard  Street,  and  he  felt  curiously  ashamed 
of  it  and  wished  he  could  disown  it  as  far  as  the  loungers 
of  Soho  were  concerned.  After  all,  his  attachment  to 
Cora  was  romantic  and  he  resented  these  Italians  and 
Frenchmen,  fat  washerwomen  and  lean  waiters  taking, 
as  they  obviously  did,  a  cynical  view  of  it.  .  .  .  The 
negro  chauffeur  carried  the  luggage  up,  his  as  well,  and 
grinned  in  anticipation  of  a  tip.  So  powerful  was  the 
influence  of  the  opulent  car  that  Trevor  gave  him  five 
pounds  and  felt  that  it  was  a  mere  trifle.  .  .  .  Money, 
like  everything  else,  had  broken  loose  and  become  light 
and  fluid. 

In  the  flat  Trevor  became  painfully  conscious  of 
Estelle's  black  eyes  balefully  upon  him.  Like  the  car 
in  Gerrard  Street,  she  seemed  at  least  three  times  too  big 
for  the  flat.  Trevor  tried  to  persuade  himsel  f  that  it  was 
only  the  effect  of  returning  to  London  from  the  sea,  but 
before  very  long  he  had  to  admit  that  Estelle  was  defi- 
nitely hostile  to  him,  that  he  was  in  her  way,  and  possibly 
in  Cora's,  who  was  blissfully  unconscious  of  what  was 
going  on.  She,  devoted  creature,  was  intent  only  on  not 
letting  him  out  of  her  sight.  She  could  not  endure  it. 
He  might  suddenly  grow  into  another  Trevor  altogether. 
He  might  at  any  moment  say  good-bye,  as,  according  to 
the  ethic  of  her  world,  he  was  perfectly  entitled  to  do, 
for  according  to  the  ethic  of  her  world  she  had  merely 
made  a  fool  of  herself  and  had  offended  against  the 
rules.  He  might — he  might  meet  some  girl  of  his  own 
class,  some  one  whom  his  mother  would  be  pleased  to 
welcome.  He  might  break  down  and  go  from  one 
woman  to  another.  .  .  .  And  none  of  these  things 
could  she  bear.  She  had  made  him  so  strong  and  so 


LONDON  75 


handsome  and  so  gay.  Of  coujj^e,  something  would  hap- 
pen if  she  let  him  go. 

She  clung  to  him  while  Estelle  in  gaunt  disapproba- 
tion prepared  a  very  meagre  supper. 

"  Darling,"  she  said,  "  you  don't  want  to  leave  your 
darling.  Didn't  she  make  him  happy?  Didn't  she  make 
him  comfortable?  Wasn't  she  kind  to  him  and  his  little 
dog?  .  .  .  See,  Sydney  wants  to  stay" — Sydney  was 
asleep  on  the  white  Angora  hearthrug — "  Doesn't  my 
darling  want  to  stay  ?  " 

In  the  mirror  of  the  black  walnut  sideboard  Trevor 
could  see  a  reflection  of  the  bedroom  with  its  pink  rib- 
bons. It  had  been  prepared  in  their  absence  with  a  pat- 
tern of  pink  roses  festooned  about  blue  ribbons. 

"Oh!  my  God!"  he  said. 

"What  is  it,  darling?" 

It  had  become  impossible  for  him  to  stay.  Never, 
never  could  he  go  into  that  room  again. 

"  To  be  quite  candid,"  he  said,  "  I  hate  this  flat.  I 
hate  Soho.  I  hate  the  waiters  and  the  washer- 
women, who  look  as  though  they  knew  everybody's 
business  because  they  know  what  everybody's  busi- 
ness is." 

It  struck  him  that  this  was  a  very  odd  speech  to  be 
making,  but  he  could  not  take  his  eyes  off  the  pink-rose 
wallpaper  reflected  in  the  mirror. 

"  You  don't  like  me,"  said  Cora. 

"  Oh !  Don't  talk  nonsense.  I  like  you  better  than 
any  one.  I  love  you.  I've  never  been  so  happy  with 
any  one.  You  are  one  of  the  best  creatures  that  ever 
lived." 

"  But  you're  not  happy  now.  You're  cross  with 
Dorothy.  Is  it  because  of  the  car  ?  .  .  .1  did  want  a 


PINK  ROSES 


drive  with  you  more  than  anything,  and  .  .  .  and 
.  .  .  it's  the  only  car  I  knew  ..." 

He  could  not  resist  his  curiosity. 

"Whose  car  is  it?" 

"You  won't  be  cross  with  me  if  I  tell  you?" 

"  No.    No.    Of  course  not." 

"  It's  .    .    .   it's  Ysnaga's." 

"Ah!" 

"  You're  not  jealous?  " 

She  looked  at  him  eagerly.  Ah!  How  pleased  she 
would  have  been  if  he  had  been  jealous!  She  clung  to 
him  and  looked  up  into  his  face.  Trevor  was  seized  with 
an  almost  uncontrollable  desire  to  laugh.  Was  he  jeal- 
ous? Well,  perhaps,  a  little.  .  .  .  Her  eyes  searched 
his,  and  to  avoid  her  scrutiny  he  lowered  his  eyelids. 

"  God  knows,"  he  said.    "  You  don't  understand." 

"What  don't  I  understand?" 

"  That  one  doesn't  want  always  to  be  happy." 

"  I  can  be  terrible  too.    You  know  I  can  be  terrible.'* 

"  Let  me  go  to-night,  Cora,"  he  said.  "  It  has  been 
very  good  down  there,  but  in  London  it  isn't  the  same." 

She  understood  at  last  that  he  could  not  stay,  but 
because  she  thought  him  jealous  she  felt  a  little  safer 
and  withdrew  her  opposition. 

"  It  isn't  the  same  here,"  she  said.  "  No,  I'll  leave  this 
flat  if  you  don't  like  it.  .  .  .  Can't  we  have  a  house?  " 

"  No.  No.  We're  back  in  London,  and  I'm  only  here 
for  another  year,  you  know.  .  .  .  Less  than  a  year 
now." 

For  a  full  two  minutes  she  sat  staring  at  him;  longing 
to  say  something,  but  at  last  she  burst  into  a  passion  of 
weeping,  laid  her  arms  out  on  the  table  and  rolled  her 
head  from  one  arm  to  the  other  wailing : 


LONDON  77 

"  I  love  you.    ...   I  love  you.   ...    I  love  you." 

He  tried  to  comfort  her,  but  in  vain,  and  at  last  look- 
ing up  he  saw  Estelle  standing  in  the  doorway  glaring  at 
him.  She  jerked  her  head  towards  the  front  door  and, 
acting  on  her  suggestion,  he  crept  out  and  was  out  in  the 
street  before  he  recollected  that  he  had  left  his  bag  and 
Sydney.  He  decided  not  to  go  back  for  them  and  walked 
to  his  rooms,  where,  in  his  overwrought  condition,  he 
could  have  sworn  as  he  entered,  that  he  heard  Hard- 
man's  jolly  laugh,  and  Peto  saying: 

"  At  last  the  old  are  not  going  to  have  it  all  their  own 
way.  The  young  are  going  to  live !  " 

He  was  alarmed  and  disappointed,  because  he  had 
thought  that  he  was  rid  for  ever  of  hallucinations  and 
the  haunting  sense  of  his  friends  never  having  been  away 
at  all.  Of  course  he  didn't  believe  in  ghosts  or  anything 
of  that  sort,  remnants  of  personality  or  whatever  the 
spooky  people  called  it,  but  there  were  odd  noises  in  his 
room  and  Sydney  had  sometimes  bristled  and  barked  at 
nothing  in  particular.  .  .  .  What  beastly  gloomy  rooms 
they  were!  No  one  but  three  raw  young  idiots  would 
have  rented  them — at  such  a  price  too ! — and  taken  such 
a  pride  in  them.  The  big  living-room  was  all  doors  and 
draughts.  Even  the  books  could  not  make  it  a  solid 
place.  Poor  books!  Most  of  them  had  been  Hardman's, 
the  devout  reader  who  had  a  marvellous  digestion  so 
that  he  could  gulp  down  all  the  moderns  as  they  came 
from  the  press.  And  poor  moderns  with  their  social  con- 
science and  sociological  abstractions  which  they  mistook 
for  people!  Not  much  was  left  of  them  now  that  people 
had  become  more  ghostly  even  than  their  abstractions. 
Ghostly  figures  in  khaki  creeping  back  out  of  the  tragedy 
into  a  new  impossible  London  full  of  loverless,  husband- 


78  PINK  ROSES 


less,  childless  women,  ghostly  too  in  their  efforts  to 
conceal  their  bewilderment  as  the  men  through  whom 
they  hoped  to  live  were  forced  away  from  them. 

Trevor  sat  alone  in  his  room  and  stared  at  the  doors 
through  which  his  friends  used  to  appear  in  the  morning 
to  discuss  on  their  way  to  the  bath  the  doings  of  the 
previous  night.  Peto  always  dined  out.  He  frequented 
middle-aged  gentlemen  who  possessed  good  cellars  or 
gave  him  dinners  at  the  Athenaeum  or  the  Reform. 
Hardman,  on  the  other  hand,  patronized  concerts,  the 
theatre,  political  meetings,  for  he  loved  humanity  in  the 
lump.  Details  hardly  interested  him,  and  certainly  never 
disgusted  him  as  they  did  Trevor,  who  could  be  upset 
and  shaken  to  the  bottom  of  his  not  very  stable  philos- 
ophy by  a  man's  ears  or  a  woman's  ankles.  All  Trevor's 
knowledge  of  the  old  indolent,  loquacious  London  came 
through  Hardman,  who  had  loved  it  and  designed  to  live 
in  it.  ...  But  that  was  all  over:  no  more  Hardman, 
no  more  London.  It  had  been  swamped  in  a  tidal  wave 
from  the  provinces  and  from  every  country  in  the  world. 

"  No,"  thought  Trevor,  "  I  can't  stand  it.  I  can't 
stay  here.  This  house  is  too  old.  Everything  and  every- 
body pre-war  is  terribly  old,  really  on  the  other  side  of 
the  grave.  ...  I  shall  be  glad  when  my  year  is  up." 

He  smoked  pipe  after  pipe,  and  though  he  was  ter- 
ribly sleepy  he  could  not  drag  himself  to  bed.  He  did 
not  want  to  sleep.  He  wanted  to  have  done  with  this 
room  that  contained  his  old  London  and  was  still  so  alive 
that  imaginary  voices  could  be  heard  in  it,  and  he  was 
uneasy  in  his  mind  about  Hardman.  He  felt  uncom- 
fortably that  he  had  never  known  but  had  only  admired 
him,  as  everybody  did.  Hardman  had  always  been  a 
myth.  Things  had  been  miraculously  easy  for  him.  At 


LONDON  79 

Uppingham  he  had  been  easily  first,  both  in  games  and 
scholarship,  and  long  before  he  went  to  Cambridge  his 
reputation  preceded  him,  so  that  without  effort  or 
floundering  he  had  only  to  be  himself.  His  powers  in 
every  direction  were  never  criticized  or  questioned,  and 
his  reputation  went  before  him  up  to  London,  so  that 
there  too  he  could  without  effort  just  be  himself.  He 
was  so  gracious  that  it  was  both  an  honour  and  a  delight 
to  be  his  friend,  so  charming  that  it  was  impossible  to 
know  him.  You  were  so  happy  in  his  presence  that  you 
never  bothered  about  the  facts  of  his  life.  There  was 
only  one  fact,  and  that  was  himself.  Nothing  that  he 
did  was  half  so  important.  .  .  .  No  doubt  his  mother 
had  a  lock  of  his  baby  hair.  His  poems  were  hardly 
more  than  that,  something  intimate  for  his  friends,  but 
not  for  the  great  world.  .  .  . 

All  the  lights  in  the  room  were  on.  There  was  no 
room  for  doubt  about  it.  The  door  opened  and  Hard- 
man  came  in  wearing  his  horrible  old  dressing-gown  and 
the  shabby,  torn  pyjamas  which  he  loved  because  they 
were  the  first  suit  he  had  bought  at  Cambridge — twelve- 
and-six — and  Father  Ignatius  had  walked  into  the  shop 
in  his  monkish  garb  and  fur  hood  and  passed  a  blessing 
on  him.  He  slid  into  the  corner  of  the  Chesterfield,  and 
sat  with  his  legs  out  and  his  hands  caressing  his  rather 
plump  wrists.  He  was  very  happy  and  pleased  with  him- 
self, and,  as  he  always  did  when  he  was  going  to  talk  at 
length,  he  began  to  twist  his  forelock,  which  often  broke 
away  from  his  smooth  hair  and  tried  to  hang  down  into 
his  eyes. 

"  You're  all  wrong  about  me,  you  know,  old  man.  I 
was  just  born  charmed.  Everything  was  so  delicious 
that  I  just  gaped  at  it.  I  mean  really  everything,  even 


go  PINK  ROSES 


horrible  things.  I  kept  outside  it  all.  That  is  quite  easy 
if  you  stop  growing,  but  it  is  a  rotten  thing  to  do.  I  did 
it.  I  was  never  touched  by  anything  or  anybody,  never 
established  connection  with  anything,  and  people  loved 
me  because  I  was  untouched.  It  is  very  easy  to  do  things 
if  you  are  like  that,  and  such  fun,  because  you  don't 
really  do  them.  Women  are  like  that,  and  that  is  why 
they  are  such  frauds.  .  .  .  Well,  I  was  a  fraud  too. 
Women  loved  me  because  I  was  a  fraud,  and  could  play 
their  game,  and  they  knew  I  was  safe  because  I  couldn't 
betray  them  without  giving  myself  away.  They  used  to 
say  that  I  took  them  seriously.  Seriously!  I  was 
cleverer  than  any  of  them.  How  could  I  take  them  seri- 
ously when  I  was  such  a  joke  to  myself?  .  .  .  Well, 
that's  modern  love.  It  is  all  in  the  hands  of  the  women. 
I  had  my  fill  of  it,  and  none  of  you  ever  knew,  none  of 
you,  but  every  woman  I  ever  met  knew,  but  they  never 
gave  me  away  and  I  never  gave  them  away.  They  love 
their  fraud  so  much  that  they  cannot  stand  the  real  thing, 
now  I  ...  I  couldn't  ever  be  a  real  soldier,  but  I  had 
to  pretend  to  be  a  poet  going  into  the  war  flying  the  ban- 
ner of  an  aesthetic  emotion.  ...  It  doesn't  matter, 
because  we  are  all  such  liars.  ...  I  think  some  of  us 
hoped  that  the  war  would  turn  out  to  be  a  real  thing,  but 
it  didn't.  It  is  a  colossal  fraud,  the  sum  of  all  our  lies. 
I  believe  the  women  know  it  too,  but  they  won't  give 
themselves  away.  There  never  was,  there  never  will  be, 
a  real  Me,  but  just  a  baby  gazing  enchanted,  greedily  and 
excitedly  at  all  the  new  toys  coming  into  being — aero- 
planes, submarines,  motor-boats,  gas-masks,  tin-hats, 
Colonial  soldiers,  Americans  male  and  female,  camou- 
flage, and  all  the  other  hard  inhuman  words  coming  into 
the  language,  so  that  one  can  only  talk  comfortably  in 


LONDON  81 

polyglot  slang,  a  kind  of  baby-language.  .  .  .  I'm 
typical,  you  know,  a  stunt.  Well,  I  always  was  a  stunt, 
and  shall  be  a  bigger  stunt  than  ever.  .  .  .  Some  things 
I  did  really  like — good  claret,  breakfast  with  a  brilliant 
talker,  trees  and  delicate  tea-cups.  That  is  all.  If  I 
hadn't  invented  myself  as  a  poet  I  could  never  have  gone. 
.  .  .  Peto  could,  but  I  couldn't,  and  you  might  have 
done  in  the  first  rush,  but  whenever  I  couldn't  stand  it  I 
went  sick.  Being  a  poet  it  was  easier  for  me  to  go  sick 
than  for  the  others,  and  when  I  was  sick  I  wrote  a  poem 
and  that  damned  fool  Cherryman  published  it.  I'd  never 
written  a  line  in  my  life  until  Cherryman  took  it  into  his 
head  that  I  was  a  poet.  ...  If  they  only  knew;  it's 
much  easier  to  be  a  poet  than  a  soldier  nowadays,  a  real 
soldier.  There  isn't,  there  can't  be  such  a  thing,  because, 
like  everything  else,  war  is  a  trade  and  no  longer  an  ad- 
venture. .  .  .  And  when  you  come  to  think  of  it,  that 
is  probably  the  reason  why  we  won't  grow  up,  we  mod- 
erns, because  we  don't  want  to  be  tradesmen.  .  .  .  The 
tradespeople!  How  scornfully  we  used  to  hear  that  said, 
but  we  are  all  of  us  tradespeople  now,  and  probably  we 
are  quite  right  in  our  instinctive  perception  that  in  the 
long  run  the  war  is  going  to  be  good  for  trade." 

The  extraordinary  thing  was  that,  just  as  in  the  old 
days,  when  Hardman  talked  Trevor  had  to  listen.  He 
could  not  help  himself.  The  voice  drawling  on  enchanted 
and  hypnotized  him.  As  it  ceased  he  pinched  himself, 
and  told  himself  that  Hardman  was  not  really  there,  but 
that  was  no  good,  for  Hardman  was  there  wrapping  his 
old  dressing-gown  round  him,  pulling  together  his  tat- 
tered pyjamas,  reaching  out  for  a  cigarette,  getting  up 
sleepily  and  saying: 

"  Good-night." 


g2  PINK  ROSES 


There  was  no  doubt  about  that.  His  voice  droning  on 
might  have  been  a  recurrent  memory,  but  those  two 
syllables  rapped  out  sharp  and  clear  and  Hardman 
walked  away  with  his  slow,  indolent  gait,  and  slowly  the 
door  was  closed.  The  room  was  brilliantly  lit,  the  cur- 
tains were  drawn.  There  was  not  a  shadow  anywhere. 

Trevor  jumped  to  his  feet,  and,  with  his  heart  thump- 
ing, ran  to  the  door,  opened  it  and  looked  into  Hard- 
man's  room.  It  was  in  darkness.  He  turned  on  the 
light.  It  was  empty,  but  he  went  to  the  bed  and  felt  it 
to  make  sure  that  there  was  no  one  concealed  in  it. 

"  But  it  was,"  he  said.  "  It  was.  I  couldn't  have 
invented  all  that.  Harry  never  had  anything  to  do  with 
women.  It  must  have  been  me  talking  about  myself. 
.  .  .  No.  No.  No  one  was  ever  charmed  with  me. 
.  .  .  But  one  knew.  It  is  true  so  far.  One  knew  that 
Harry  would  have  to  die  because  he  couldn't  go  on." 

It  was  some  time  before  he  was  satisfied  that  Hard- 
man was  not  there.  After  all  there  might  have  been  a 
mistake,  and  he  might  have  returned.  It  was  so  admir- 
ably right  that  Hardman  should  have  died  in  his  young 
perfection  that  it  was  scarcely  credible  that  it  could  have 
happened,  except  that  the  incredible  had  become  the  rule. 
.  .  .  Perhaps  the  inevitable  things  had  been  postponed 
for  so  long  that  they  were  all  happening  at  once.  .  .  . 

So  strong,  however,  was  the  sense  of  Hardman's  pres- 
ence that  as  he  closed  the  door  he  returned  his  friend's 
"  Good-night,"  and  that  in  some  obscure  fashion  settled 
his  conscience  and  he  was  able  to  go  to  bed  and  to  sleep, 
though  he  missed  Sydney,  who  was  in  the  habit  of  lying 
in  the  crook  of  his  knees. 

In  the  morning  the  first  proofs  of  Hardman's  poems 
arrived  with  a  preface  by  Cherryman,  a  journalist  who 


LONDON  83 

had  installed  himself  skilfully  for  the  duration  of  the 
war,  first  in  a  mysterious  new  Government  department, 
and  secondly  as  the  patron  of  soldier-poets,  thus  provid- 
ing for  his  material  and  his  social  welfare.  There  was 
no  harm  in  Cherryman  except  that  he  simply  did  not 
know  a  poem  from  a  fly-paper.  If  it  had  been  sent  to 
him  by  a  soldier-poet  he  would  have  printed  the  cover  of 
a  jam-jar  as  a  poem,  probably  with  a  note  on  its 
obscurity.  .  .  .  Trevor  chuckled  over  his  preface  and 
thought,  having  slept  off  his  nightmare,  how  Hardman 
would  have  enjoyed  it.  The  influence  of  Marvell  in  the 
poems  was  sufficiently  strong  to  make  even  Cherryman 
feel  it,  and  he  wrote  for  a  page  or  so  about  the  Round- 
head poets  and  the  singers  of  the  new  crusade  against 
tyranny  and  autocracy,  and  his  remarks  were  so  funny 
that  Trevor,  chuckling  over  his  marmalade,  cried: 

"  Oh!  thank  God  I  am  out  of  it  all,  and  can  see  how 
funny  it  is!  " 

As  he  read  the  poems  he  wished  he  could  remember 
more  clearly  what  had  been  said  in  that  strange  dream- 
conversation.  .  .  .  Something  about  London  and  women 
and  people  being  so  fraudulent  that  they  were  afraid 
of  honesty.  .  .  .  There  was  no  doubt  about  the  dex- 
terity of  the  poems.  They  had  the  same  clean  and 
rather  mysterious  efficiency  with  which  their  author 
made  a  fifty  at  cricket  without  any  great  effort  or  spec- 
tacular hitting  and  certainly  with  no  recklessness.  There 
was  a  good  deal  about  England  in  them,  but  Trevor 
could  find  in  these  utterances  nothing  but  what  a  certain 
section  of  London  society  thought  they  ought  to  think 
about  it  all.  .  .  .  London  and  not  England  was  in 
Hardman's  mind  all  the  while — a  London  which,  having 
embarked  on  the  perilous  adventure,  had  put  on  a  face  of 


84  PINK  ROSES 


Gladstonian  nobility  as  the  appropriate  expression,  and 
Trevor,  turning  over  the  last  page,  summed  it  up  thus : 

"  Women  will  like  it." 

The  book  was  dedicated  to  himself  and  Peto,  and  he 
wondered  if  it  would  have  been  if  the  author  had  known 
that  Peto  was  smashed  and  himself  had  spent  a  month 
at  the  sea  with  a  woman  through  whom  there  was  no 
material  or  social  advantage  to  be  gained.  .  .  .  There 
was  a  gain  in  frankness  in  thus  thinking  about  his  dead 
friend.  The  poems  confirmed  the  dream-conversation, 
and  there  was  no  disloyalty  to  Hardman,  for  his  charm 
was  one  thing,  himself  another.  This  charm  belonged 
to  his  friends  as  an  undying  sunlit  memory,  and  what 
did  it  matter  if  his  poems  helped  women  to  sustain  the 
particular  fraud  they  had  evolved  for  the  duration  of 
the  war?  No  one  had  written  the  truth  yet  or  anything 
like  it,  simply  because  no  one  could  know  the  truth  or 
divine  the  cause  or  gauge  the  effect.  Circumstances  had 
arisen  in  a  world  of  comedians  for  which  there  was  no 
appropriate  emotion,  and  the  only  way  out  was  to  have 
no  emotion  whatsoever  unless  one  were  sufficiently 
simple  to  give  way  to  emotions  which  are  inadmissible  in 
polite  society  and  to  rely  on  the  sanction  of  ignorant 
mass  opinion  to  save  them  from  indecency.  Hardman, 
as  poet,  remained  polite.  He  died  before  it  became  the 
fashion  for  young  men  to  blurt  out  the  truth  or  the 
facts  of  modern  warfare. 

He  had  been  dead  nearly  a  year,  and  Cherryman  had 
calculated  with  that  London-bred  instinct,  which  may  be 
called  a  social  micrometer,  that  the  time  was  exactly  ripe 
for  publication.  The  public  was  still  sanguine,  it  had 
not  yet  begun  to  face  facts,  it  was  being  nursed  by  the 
Press  out  of  idealism  into  obstinacy,  and  yet  it  wanted 


LONDON  85 

something  more  than  the  repetition  of  enemy  atrocities 
to  make  it  accept  cheerfully  the  profound  modifications 
of  its  daily  life  which  had  become  necessary  if  mili- 
tary organization  was  not  to  be  dislocated  by  civilian 
habits. 

Trevor  knew  his  Cherryman,  and  his  slight  intercourse 
with  him  had  taught  him  more  than  he  had  ever  hoped 
to  know  about  London  life,  as  in  itself,  beneath  all  its 
charm  and  opulent  security,  it  is.  He  realized  that  Lon- 
don was  so  huge  that  it  had  hardly  begun  to  feel  the 
existence  of  the  war  at  all  except  as  an  excitement  that 
was  happening  somehow  on  paper.  A  million  young  men 
might  go  out  of  it — but  six  million  people  remained,  and 
they  soon  got  used  to  the  absence  of  the  missing  few. 
They  accepted  that  a  few  people  were  responsible  for 
getting  on  with  the  war,  and  that  these  few  had  the 
power  to  manipulate  them  and  their  lives,  and  they 
acquiesced  good-humouredly.  Of  tragedy  or  tragic 
realization  there  was  none.  The  appropriate  thing  was 
done  as  nearly  as  possible  at  the  appropriate  moment  and 
decorum  was  preserved.  For  Cherryman  the  appropriate 
thing  for  the  early  autumn  was  the  publication  of  the 
poems  of  Henry  Hardman,  and  he  desired  to  invoke 
Trevor's  assistance,  and  also  to  exploit  him  socially  as 
the  sole  survivor  of  the  most  promising  trio  that  Cam- 
bridge had  sent  to  London  since  Tennyson,  Fitz- 
Gerald,  etc. 

Before  his  holiday  all  this  had  repelled  Trevor,  but 
now  it  had  a  certain  savour.  He  was  becoming  an  epicure 
in  situations,  an  amateur  of  the  ridiculous,  and  his  curi- 
osity was  piqued  to  see  how  far  Cherryman  could  carry 
his  exploitation  of  the  pathetic  remnants  of  youth.  .  .  . 
This  was  another  remarkable  thing  that  had  happened 


86  PINK  ROSES 


to  Trevor  during  his  recent  experiences.  His  youth  had 
left  him,  or  rather  he  had  flung  it  aside  as  inappropriate 
and  almost  illicit  in  war-time  London.  Boys  of  eighteen, 
nineteen,  twenty  were  being  stripped  of  theirs;  he  could 
no  longer,  without  acute  and  apparently  futile  suffering, 
keep  his.  As  he  phrased  it,  the  world  had  declared  war 
on  youth  and  he  was  not  sufficiently  egoistic  to  accept 
the  challenge  or,  as  he  put  it  more  bluntly  upon  occasion, 
Youth  had  become  a  devilish  thing  to  have  about  you. 
Middle-age  was  your  only  wear.  And  that  was  the  most 
remarkable  thing  about  Hardman's  poems;  they  were 
middle-aged  for  middle-aged  people,  a  sop  for  Cherry- 
man — of  whom  more  as  we  turn  the  kaleidoscope. 

All  this  may  seem  a  great  deal  for  one  young  man  to 
ruminate  upon  over  coffee  and  marmalade  and  a  set  of 
proofs,  but  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  our  hero — and  in 
a  socialized  existence  to  be  singular  in  any  degree  is  to 
be  heroic — had  returned  to  London  in  the  best  of  health, 
in  a  state  of  slight  emotional  disturbance  and  intent  upon 
squaring  up  to  his  previous  existence  with  which  he  was 
on  the  whole  so  dissatisfied  that  he  could  even  feel  every 
now  and  then  that  the  Hobdays  and  the  Cherrymans 
were  right.  He  had  certainly  been  wrong  to  revolt 
against  them,  for  they  were  London,  and  London  was 
very  big  and  important,  but  it  was  one  thing  to  cease  to 
rebel,  quite  another  to  acquiesce.  There  was  always  tol- 
erance as  an  alternative.  Internally  as  well  as  externally 
it  is  important  that  one  should  live  a  quiet  life  in  which 
there  is  some  hope  of  a  man  finding  out  what  he  wants, 
so  that  in  due  course  he  can  arrange  to  get  it.  To  be 
in  revolt  is  simply  to  waste  time  in  disliking  what  other 
people  want  to  get. 

Trevor  did  not  yet  know  what  he  wanted  except  nega- 


LONDON  87 

lively.  He  did  not  want  to  go  home,  nor  did  he  wish  to 
pursue  any  further  what  was  left  of  the  life  he  had  lived 
with  his  friends.  In  order  to  give  himself  the  pleasure 
of  doing  something  decisive  he  rang  the  bell  and  gave 
the  landlady  notice. 

"  There's  nothing  wrong,  Mr.  Mathew,  is  there?  And 
we  were  so  fond  of  the  sweet  little  dog." 

"  No.  Nothing  wrong.  The  rooms  are  too  big  for 
me,  or  else  I've  shrunk." 

"Of  course  it  is  lonely  for  you  now,  sir,"  said  the 
landlady  sympathetically,  hoping  to  touch  his  heart,  but 
he  was  stonily  resolved. 

"  I  shall  send  away  Mr.  Peto's  and  Mr.  Hardman's 
things,  and  I  shall  sell  my  own.  .  .  .  Cambridge  in 
London  induces  a  certain  putrefaction." 

"  I'm  grieved  indeed,  sir.  We  could  have  found  you 
another  gentleman.  There  are  lots  of  gentlemen  coming 
up  to  London  to  go  into  the  War  Office  and  the  Admi- 
ralty now  that  every  one  has  got  to  be  a  soldier.  ..." 

"  I  shall  sell  up  at  once,"  said  Trevor  sharply. 
"And  I  will  give  you  three  months'  rent  in  lieu  of 
notice." 

"Oh!  thank  you,  sir.  .  .  .  And  if  you  are  really 
going  to  sell,  sir,  might  I  have  the  first  offer  of  the  chest 
of  drawers?  " 

Trevor  nodded  his  assent  and  went  into  the  bathroom 
to  shave.  He  was  offended  by  the  shabby  squalor  of  the 
rooms.  They  had  never  been  anything  else  but  shabby 
and  squalid,  because  they  had  always  been  inhabited  by 
men,  and  men  are  such  drab,  shy  creatures,  hating 
change,  anything  which  may  disturb  the  dust  which  lies 
upon  their  thoughts. 

"  Good  God,  yes,"  thought  Trevor,  distastefully  sur- 


88  PINK  ROSES 


veying  the  untidy  bathroom,  with  its  decrepit  paint  and 
worn  linoleum.  "  It  is  time  I  went.  .  .  .  It  is  time 
j " 

He  suddenly  began  to  think  of  Cora  again.     She  had 
not  been  in  his  thoughts  since  he  had  left  her,  and  he 
rather  resented  her  cropping  up  again,  although  at  once 
he  knew  that  it  was  she  who  had  made  his  continued 
existence  in  the  London  he  had  known  impossible.    .    .    . 
If  only  she  had  not  cried  like  that  he  would  not  have 
wished  to  avoid  thinking  of  her,  but  she  had  cried  be- 
cause she  loved  him  and  because  she  thought  he  was 
going  back   to   his  old   existence.   .    .    .   Oh,   well,   he 
would  go  and  tell  her  he  had  broken  with  it  and  then  she 
would  be  happy,  and  they  could  go  on  as  before  dining 
at  the  Cafe  Claribel.     When  the  fine  weather  went  they 
would  find  some  substitute  for  the  Park.    The  world  as 
at  present  constituted  was  not  a  fit  place  into  which  to 
bring  children,  and  Cora  was  right,  as  no  one  else  whom 
he  had  met  was  right.     Everybody  else  was  clinging  to 
worn-out  pretences.     She  had  none,  and  with  her  and  a 
dog  he  had  all  that  was  honestly  possible.    The  point  of 
this  reflection  lay  in  the  abverb  honestly. 

He  called  at  the  flat  on  his  way  to  the  City.  Cora  was 
in  bed  reading — there  is  as  yet  no  verb  for  the  process 
of  what  is  done  to  a  pictorial  newspaper :  it  is  certainly 
not  read — the  Sunday  Herald.  Sydney  was  lying  in  her 
lap,  and  she  had  just  finished  breakfast. 

Down  went  the  Herald,  away  went  Sydney,  and 
Trevor,  overwhelmed  by  her  delight,  flew  into  her  arms. 

"  Cruel,  cruel  darling,"  she  murmured. 

"  It's  all  right,"  he  said  in  a  voice  almost  as  honeyed. 
"  I'm  going  to  leave  my  rooms.  I've  thought  of  a  plan. 
We'll  live  in  opposite  flats.  .  .  .  You  can  go  and  look 


LONDON  89 

for  them  to-day.     I  don't  want  you  to  stay  here.     You 
know  I  have  always  hated  it." 

Cora  could  only  croon  out  her  ecstasy,  and  she  kissed 
his  eyes,  his  lips,  his  ears,  and  bit  the  tip  of  his  nose 
until  it  was  bruised  and  swollen. 


VII 
RUTH  HOBDAY 

MR.  HENRY  HOBDAY,  the  lawyer,  lived  in  Bayswater, 
where  his  small  family,  Mrs.  Henry  Hobday  and  two 
daughters,  was  attended  by  eight  servants.  Mr.  Charles 
Hobday,  his  brother,  lived  at  Highgate,  and  his  large 
family  scrambled  along  with  onefmaid,  or  a  charwoman, 
or  sometimes  no  assistance  at  all.  Mr.  Charles  Hobday 
saw  his  brother  twice  a  year  at  his  office,  and  Mr. 
Charles  Hobday  used  to  receive  from  Mrs.  Henry  every 
year  a  parcel  of  old  clothes.  Otherwise  the  two  families 
were  strangers  to  each  other,  because  success  cannot 
acknowledge  failure,  and  Charles  Hobday  had  failed. 
He  had  refused  on  leaving  Oxford  to  enter  the  firm,  he 
had  married  a  lady  some  years  older  than  himself  who 
had  more  charm  and  character  than  money,  and  though 
he  had  made  one  or  two  scientific  discoveries  which  had 
profoundly  modified  certain  trades,  he  had  allowed  him- 
self to  be  swindled  out  of  the  fortune  he  should  have 
made.  He  had  no  commercial  sense  whatever,  and  his 
only  steady  income  was  derived  from  writing  a  weekly 
article  in  a  paper  devoted  to  the  success  of  poultry- 
keeping,  of  which  he  knew  nothing  whatsoever.  He  had 
produced  children  as  absent-mindedly  as  he  had  done 
everything  else,  and  when  his  wife  died  he  was  so  used 
to  her  that  he  hardly  noticed  her  absence,  especially  as 
his  eldest  girl,  Ruth,  had  grown  old  enough  to  take  her 
place  in  looking  after  the  children  and  his  own  creature 

90 


RUTH  HOBDAY  91 


comforts,  meagre  as  they  were.  For  Ruth  this  promo- 
tion was  hardly  noticeable,  for  she  had  served  a  long 
apprenticeship  and  had  learned  from  her  mother  all  the 
twists  and  dodges  by  which  ends  that  will  not  meet  can 
be  kept  from  slipping  for  ever  and  finally  apart.  Like 
her  mother  she  pounced  on  any  money  that  came  into  the 
house  and  allowed  her  father  half  a  crown  a  week  for 
tobacco  and  sundries,  and  for  the  rest  treated  him  as  one 
of  the  children,  one  of  the  seven  mouths  that  had  to  be 
fed.  Like  her  mother,  too,  Ruth  despised  the  Hobdays, 
who  had  never  been  anything  better  than  attorneys,  while 
the  Paget-Suttons  had  an  earl  and  a  baron  in  their  family, 
and  in  the  eighteenth  century  had  had  their  town  house 
in  Park  Lane  and  their  country  mansion  in  Northamp- 
tonshire. Ruth  had  still  something  of  that  atmosphere 
about  her,  a  little  of  the  air  of  having  come  up  to  London 
in  her  own  barouche  or  chaise  upon  affairs  or  for  the 
season. 

She  was  slight  and  very  graceful,  pale,  and  with  small 
but  singularly  well-proportioned  features,  a  strong  chin 
and  eyes  that  could  not  but  look  direct.  Though  she  was 
stern  with  him  she  was  fond  of  her  father,  and  regarded 
him  as  a  shamefully  used  man,  and  it  enraged  her  that 
she  could  not  do  without  the  hundred  and  fifty  pounds  a 
year  allowed  him  by  his  brother.  Her  mother  had  suf- 
fered under  that  too,  and  Ruth  had  left  school  at  fifteen 
to  try  and  make  it  possible  to  dispense  with  it,  but  in 
vain.  The  children  grew,  they  ate  more,  and  their  needs 
increased  faster  than  her  earnings.  .  .  .  Her  experi- 
ence and  her  knowledge  of  the  suffering  she  was  put  to 
made  her  determined  that  the  boys  should  not  cease  their 
education  prematurely.  They  all  had  brains,  character, 
and  the  breeding  of  the  Paget-Suttons,  and  she  would 


92  PINK  ROSES 


not  have  them  wasted.  She  wanted  them  to  join  pro- 
fessions, but  no  power  on  earth  could  make  her  ask  her 
Uncle  Henry  for  further  assistance.  Sometimes  when 
her  father  was  not  in  the  mood  to  face  his  half-yearly 
visit  to  the  office  to  report  on  the  family  history  she  had 
to  go  in  his  stead,  and  it  was  there  that  she  first  saw 
Trevor.  She  marked  him  only  as  the  kind  of  young  man 
she  wished  her  brothers  to  be,  rich,  easy,  elegant,  accept- 
ing his  privileged  position  in  the  world  as  in  the  natural 
order  of  things  because  he  was  fit  for  it,  and  had  taken 
some  trouble  to  make  a  good  show  in  it.  Eton  and 
Cambridge  had  done  very  well  for  him,  and  he  had  done 
very  well  for  Eton  and  Cambridge.  .  .  .  Ruth  adored 
good  manners,  and  she  suffered  tortures  from  a  lack  of 
them  in  the  office  of  the  Anglo-Batavian  Tropical 
Produce  Company,  in  which  she  had  found  employ- 
ment. 

Trevor  had  not  noticed  her.  They  met  in  the  dark 
inner  passage  of  the  office,  but  his  walk,  the  ease  with 
which  he  made  way  for  her,  the  impersonal  courtesy  of 
his  attitude  kindled  her  and  made  her  grateful.  It  was 
all  the  more  noticeable  for  being  utterly  foreign  to  the 
atmosphere  of  Hobday,  Treves  and  Treves.  .  .  .  Yes. 
That  was  what  she  wanted  her  brothers  to  be,  and  if  she 
could  only  succeed  in  making  them  so  the  Bayswater 
Hobdays  would  be  answered.  Their  daughters  could 
never  attract  such  men. 

This  was  soon  after  Trevor  had  gone  to  Hobday's, 
and  before  the  war  broke  out.  She  was  only  once  in  the 
office  after  that.  She  looked  out  for  him  but  they  did  not 
meet,  and  she  assumed  that  he  had  gone  off  a-soldiering 
and  she  was  sorry. 

Among  other  ideas  disturbed  by  the  outbreak  of  war 


RUTH  HOBDAY  93 


was  that  which  she  had  inherited  from  her  mother  of 
her  father's  hopelessness,  and  she  tackled  him: 

"  Father,"  she  said,  seeking  him  out  in  the  large  attic 
at  the  top  of  the  house  which  he  had  turned  into  a  labora- 
tory and  workroom.  "  I'm  sure  this  is  your  chance. 
.  .  .  I'm  sure  you  could  invent  something  that  would 
make  your  fortune.  The  boys  must  go  to  school,  a 
really  good  school,  and  this  is  the  time  for  men  like  you 
to  come  into  their  own.  .  .  .  Besides,  prices  are  going 
up  and  people  in  the  City  are  so  scared  that  I'm  sure 
they  won't  give  any  increase  in  salaries." 

Charles  Hobday  had  hardly  noticed  the  outbreak  of 
war.  One  more  infatuation  of  the  world  that  had 
ignored  and  cheated  him  was  not  his  affair.  He  sup- 
posed it  would  be  like  other  wars,  an  excitement,  a  hub- 
bub, a  slow  tailing  off  into  oblivion,  and  he  went  on 
experimenting  without  any  particular  aim  because  he 
had  long  since  lost  the  thread  of  his  ideas  and  the 
enthusiasm  which  had  made  it  so  plain  and  so  tangible 
in  his  youth.  He  was  enough  of  a  Hobday,  however,  to 
regard  himself  and  to  insist  on  being  treated  as  a  great 
man. 

"If  they  want  me,  let  them  come  for  me,"  he  said. 
"  They  know  what  I  have  done.  The  War  Office 
approved  a  specification  of  mine  twenty  years  ago.  Not 
a  penny  have  I  had  from  it,  and  of  course  the  big  people 
have  stolen  and  used  the  idea  long  ago.  .  .  .  Don't 
bother  me,  child,  I'm  very  busy." 

"  You're  nothing  of  the  kind,  father.  You  are  half 
asleep.  .  .  .  I'm  sure  if  you  looked  up  your  note-books 
you  will  find  something  that  they  want  now.  Every- 
body says  it  will  be  a  terrible  war,  and  the  Germans  have 
all  kinds  of  things  that  we  haven't.  .  .  .  You  can't 


94  PINK  ROSES 


expect  them  to  come  to  you  as  you  always  say  that  you 
have  never  taken  the  trouble  to  consolidate  your  repu- 
tation." 

"  No  more  I  have  in  a  country  like  this  which  allows 
its  best  ideas  to  go  abroad  and  leaves  its  experts  in 
isolation." 

He  was  visibly  flattered. 

"  You  are  a  good  girl,  Ruth,  and  I'll  do  as  you  sug- 
gest. I  have  all  kinds  of  ideas  noted  down,  ideas, 
half-ideas,  hints  and  semi-suggestions,  all  the  whis- 
pers of  discovery  which  are  enough  for  an  active 
mind." 

Charles  had  much  of  the  Hobday  loquacity  and  he  was 
very  like  his  brother:  indeed  he  was  exactly  what  his 
brother  would  have  been  had  anything  ever  happened  to 
set  him  wondering.  Charles  had  attacked  science  with 
all  the  Hobday  sense  of  infallibility,  but  without  the 
backing  of  the  family  machinery.  The  Hobdays  believed 
in  the  Law:  science  to  them  was  one  of  many  heresies 
incompatible  with  the  Church  of  England  attitude. 
Charles  loved  science  and  Charles  had  very  properly  suf- 
fered, and  his  sins  were  justly  visited  upon  his- children. 
And  in  spite  of  himself  and  in  spite  of  his  heresy  there 
was  in  Charles  a  great  deal  of  the  Hobday  attitude 
towards  himself.  Without  the  family  machinery  he  had 
been  unable  to  cope  with  marriage  or  paternity  or  any 
other  human  and  therefore  external  affair. 

He  was  not  a  little  nettled  at  being  stirred  up  by  his 
daughter.  His  wife  had  never  done  such  a  thing.  She 
had  undertaken  the  management  of  his  family  and  his 
household  without  disturbing  him,  and  he  expected  as 
much  from  Ruth.  He  had  so  often  believed  that  he  was 
going  to  make  his  fortune  that,  while  hope  still  burned 


RUTH  HOBDAY  95 


faintly  in  him  it  was  damped  down  by  the  continued 
monotony  of  scepticism  which  paralysed  him  and  kept 
him  in  an  inertia  from  which  it  was  too  painful  for  him 
to  stir.  The  mere  thought  of  taking  out  his  old  note- 
books set  every  nerve  in  him  twittering. 

Ruth  persisted : 

"  I  am  determined,  father,  that  the  boys  shall  go  to 
Cambridge  if  they  can  win  scholarships.  They  are  not 
people  who  ought  to  be  wasted,  and  besides  it  depends 
entirely  on  what  they  do  to  decide  the  kind  of  men  the 
girls  are  to  marry." 

She  had  no  thought  of  marrying  herself,  for  she  had 
accepted  it  as  her  destiny  to  retrieve  her  very  lively 
young  brothers  and  sisters  from  the  fate  which  without 
an  effort  on  her  part  would  certainly  overtake  them. 
.  .  .  London  was  spreading  out  in  every  direction  in 
streets  of  houses  all  exactly  alike  inhabited  by  millions  of 
people  all  exactly  alike,  and  without  a  final  effort  on  her 
part  the  young  Hobdays  would  be  swallowed  up  in  the 
great  anonymous  unquestioning  mass.  .  .  .  From  long 
habit  she  thought  of  her  family  collectively,  the  boys,  the 
girls,  and  the  children,  but  she  approached  them  through 
Leslie,  her  eldest  brother,  upon  whom  all  her  ambition 
was  centred.  She  had  no  time  really  to  make  the  ac- 
quaintance of  the  others,  and  she  regarded  them  as 
adjuncts  to  her  brother,  for  she  had  acquired  business 
habits  and  did  not  ask  the  impossible  of  herself.  The 
family  was  a  proposition  which  she  had  undertaken  to 
carry  through  and,  but  for  the  war,  she  would  hardly 
have  realized  all  her  difficulties  as  she  surmounted  them. 
With  the  growing  pressure  of  the  war  she  was  faced 
with  the  alternative  that  either  Leslie  or  her  father  must 
earn  money.  She  knew  that  her  father  would  see  no 


96  PINK  ROSES 


objection  to  Leslie  doing  it,  and  therefore  she  appealed 
to  his  vanity  rather  than  to  his  diminished  practical 
sense,  and  by  continued  pressure  she  attained  her  object, 
and  Charles  Hobday  began  really  to  work.  He  set  about 
it  with  an  enthusiasm  so  intense  that  he  forgot  all  about 
his  article  on  poultry,  missed  it  for  two  weeks,  and  lost 
his  job,  and  when  Ruth  asked  him  why  the  usual  cheque 
had  not  arrived  he  remembered,  and  in  the  most  crest- 
fallen way  humbled  himself  before  her,  and,  really 
alarmed,  hurled  himself  at  his  experiments  with  explo- 
sives with  a  result  which  made  him  beam  with  confidence 
and  for  a  time  broke  his  inertia.  He  became  so  master- 
ful that  he  went  to  see  his  old  friend,  the  proprietor  of 
the  poultry  journal,  recovered  his  job,  and  procured  a 
loan  with  which  to  continue  his  experiments  in  explo- 
sives to  destroy  the  enemy  by  the  thousand.  He  waxed 
extremely  patriotic,  and  talked  as  though  the  war  against 
the  German  Empire  were  a  punitive  expedition  against 
an  Afghan  tribe.  .  .  .  And  he  began  to  talk  about  the 
Hobdays  much  as  Kaiser  Wilhelm  II  was  talking  about 
the  Hohenzollerns,  and  to  declare  that  there  was  more 
in  them  than  the  capacity  for  legal  chicanery. 

Ruth  did  not  pay  much  attention  to  his  talk,  but, 
noting  the  difference  his  work  was  making  in  him,  she 
endeavoured  to  instil  into  him  the  necessity  of  practical 
exploitation  of  results.  He  declared  that  he  had  made  a 
first-rate  discovery  and  had  fructified  an  idea  he  had  had 
thirty  years  before,  and  he  became  very  mysterious  about 
it  and  so  inflated  that  he  could  no  longer  stay  indoors, 
as  was  his  habit,  but  walked  about  Hampstead  Heath, 
observed  the  aerial  defences  of  the  metropolis  and  suf- 
fered agonies  from  a  congestion  of  ideas.  .  .  .  Guns, 
searchlights,  motor-cars,  aeroplanes  all  thrilled  and  de- 


RUTH  HOBDAY  97 


lighted  him.  This  was  the  life  for  which  he  had  always 
hungered,  and  it  had  come  too  late.  He  was  too  old  to 
take  an  active  part  in  it  all.  .  .  .  He  loved  to  see  the 
young  men  drilling,  and  to  think  of  them  using  his  explo- 
sives, his  brain  in  their  work,  the  great  work  they  were 
called  upon  to  do,  namely  the  exhibition  of  the  marvel- 
lous ingenuity  of  the  human  mind. 

Charles  Hobday's  enthusiasm  had  always  outrun  his 
capacity.  The  Hobday  in  him  was  stronger  than  the 
Charles:  the  inspiration,  the  genius  in  him  had  always 
had  to  dodge  the  love  of  social  machinery,  and  in  that 
futile  effort  his  energies  had  been  spent,  but  in  what  he 
saw  on  Hampstead  Heath  both  the  elements  in  his  char- 
acter could  find  expression.  His  enthusiasm  was  sup- 
ported by  general  enthusiasm :  the  war  was  splendid ;  it 
was  wonderful;  it  was  the  great  opportunity. 

All  this  emotional  excitement  bubbled  and  frothed  in 
him  and  could  not  be  damped  even  when  his  offer  to 
place  his  services  at  the  disposal  of  the  Government  was 
rejected.  He  would  find  a  way! 

He  tried  in  vain  to  enlist  his  brother's  influence. 
Henry  Hobday  had  no  sympathy  with  a  man  who  at 
fifty  had  to  be  subsidized,  but  in  conversation  he  let  fall 
that  an  old  friend  of  the  family,  Sir  Seymour  Trenham, 
had  been  lent  by  his  great  chemical  firm  in  the  North  to 
the  newly  created  Ministry  of  Munitions.  .  .  .  Charles 
had  worked  in  a  laboratory  with  Trenham.  That  was 
the  man!  Providence  always  sends  to  the  inspired  the 
right  man  at  the  right  moment. 

Charles  worked  night  and  day,  and  one  morning — 
rare  occurrence — a  letter  arrived  for  him.  Ruth  sent 
Leslie  up  with  it  to  the  attic— or  laboratory — and  she 
was  just  preparing  to  go  to  the  City  when  her  father 


98  PINK  ROSES 


came  running  down  in  his  tattered  and  stained  dressing- 
gown  and  in  a  confidential  whisper  said: 

"My  dear,  Sir  Seymour  Trenham   ..." 

That  conveyed  nothing  to  Ruth,  but  she  kindled  to  the 
almost  intolerable  excitement  in  him. 

"  I  wrote  to  him  the  other  day.  He  remembers  me 
and  asks  me  to  call  on  him  at  his  private  house.  He  has 
been  lent  to  the  Government,  a  most  distinguished 
man  ..." 

"  Don't  go  before  you  have  anything  to  show  him, 
Dad,"  said  Ruth,  anxious  to  cool  him. 

"But  I  have.  .  .  .  But  I  have.  .  .  .  That's  just 
the  point." 

"Really?" 

"  Really,  really,  really." 

Ruth  could  not  resist  hugging  him.  She  kissed  him 
perhaps  only  twice  a  year,  but  now  she  was  caught  up 
by  his  hopefulness,  for  she  knew  he  must  have  been 
greatly  stirred  to  have  brought  himself  to  have  written. 

"  We'll  talk  about  it  when  I  come  home,"  she  said. 
"  Don't  do  anything  until  we  have  talked  it  over." 

"  But  .  .  .  but  I  don't  want  to  waste  any  time,"  he 
said,  looking  rather  pathetic.  Ruth's  affectionate  im- 
pulse had  almost  overwhelmed  him  and  made  him  want 
to  cry  like  a  child  who  had  been  alone  rather  too  long. 

She  set  out  for  the  City,  where  she  was  irritable  all 
day,  full  of  a  suppressed  excitement  which  she  dis- 
trusted, and  feeling  that,  if  the  new  adventurousness  in 
her  father  came  to  nothing,  she  would  not  be  able  to  go 
on.  .  .  .  Indeed,  if  nothing  happened,  there  would  be 
no  solution  of  the  financial  problem  other  than  that 
Leslie  must  leave  school,  and  that  would  break  her  heart, 
for,  if  Leslie  went,  then  the  others  would  go  too.  She 


RUTH  HOBDAY  99 


could  keep  them  afloat  no  longer,  and  what  would  be- 
come of  her?  She  would  have  worn  herself  out  for 
nothing.  Already  she  was  afraid  of  getting  hard.  In 
imagination  she  could  feel  that  creeping  over  her,  the 
insensible  crust  of  suburbanism  which  she  detested  as  the 
horror  of  horrors,  for  it  made  life  one  long  apology. 
She  knew  them  so  well,  the  little  humble  people  who 
went  into  London  every  day  by  train  and  tram,  all  in 
their  hearts  apologizing  for  their  existence,  clinging  des- 
perately to  their  jobs,  haunted  by  the  dread  of  losing 
them.  .  .  .  Never,  never  could  she  endure  the  spectacle 
of  proud,  clever  Leslie  being  broken  in  to  that,  starting 
at  eighteen  shillings  a  week  and  hoping  for  a  maximum 
of  six  pounds. 

She  returned  in  the  evening  to  find  that  her  father  had 
had  an  explosion  so  successful  that  he  had  blown  out  the 
windows  of  his  attic,  removed  half  the  roof,  and  burnt 
off  his  moustache,  one  eyebrow,  and  blistered  his  left 
hand.  The  doctor  was  in  attendance,  but  her  father's 
ardour  was  unabated,  and  he  lay  sizzling,  like  a  leaking 
syphon,  with  impatience. 

"  You  will  have  to  go,  my  dear.  We  can't  lose  a 
minute.  There  may  be  dozens  of  chemists  working  on 
the  same  lines.  .  .  .  I'll  dictate  a  letter  to  young  Tren- 
ham — I  always  think  of  him  as  young — and  you  can  take 
it  to  him.  Tell  him  of  my  accident,  and  that  I  have 
repeatedly  offered  my  services  to  the  Government.  .  .  . 
But  you  have  a  business  head.  If  he  sees  you  I'm  sure 
he  will  take  it  up.  He  must.  He  must." 

Tired  though  she  was  Ruth  agreed.  Her  firm  jaw  set 
and  she  determined  that  she  would  not  return  without 
having  seen  Trenham.  Her  father  was  not  an  igno- 
ramus. He  had  been  brilliant  at  Oxford,  only  something 


ioo  PINK  ROSES 


had  happened  to  him  and  the  Hobdays  had  treated  him 
badly. 

As  she  came  downstairs  Leslie  met  her  and  said  he 
wanted  to  talk  to  her,  and  drew  her  into  the  dining- 
room. 

"  Look  here,  Sis,"  he  said,  "  I  don't  like  the  look  of 
you  at  all.  You  look  worn  out,  and  the  rest  of  us  are 
so  selfish  that  we  leave  it  all  to  you.  .  .  .  It's  no  good 
thinking  about  Cambridge  any  more.  There  won't  be 
any  Cambridge  any  more.  All  the  fellows  will  be  going 
into  the  Army  when  they  leave  school.  One  of  the  mas- 
ters was  saying  the  other  day  that  it's  all  up  with  people 
like  us,  and  it's  true.  I  know  lots  of  fellows  whose 
mothers  do  what  you  do  for  us,  but  they're  not  going  to 
do  it  any  more.  It  isn't  good  enough.  ..." 

"  Don't  break  my  heart,  Leslie.  It  isn't  so  bad  as  all 
that.  I  should  tell  you  if  things  were  really  bad.  You 
know  I  should,  don't  you?  .  .  .  You  mustn't  begin  to 
think  of  things  too  young.  Two  years  more.  It's  only 
two  years  now.  That's  nothing." 

"  I  dunno,"  he  grumbled.  "  I  just  feel  it's  all  wrong. 
But  I  want  to  do  what  you  want.  The  chaps  at  school 
think  I'm  something  because  of  Uncle  Henry.  ...  I 
wish  to  hell  the  old  man  had  blown  himself  up  this  after- 
noon, then  perhaps  we  should  be  all  right." 

"Oh,  Leslie,  don't!" 

"  Yes,  we  should.  If  he  was  dead  Uncle  Henry  would 
have  to  do  the  decent." 

"  It's  going  to  be  all  right;  really  it  is,  Leslie.  We've 
got  to  think  of  the  others.  It  isn't  only  you.  A  girl 
giving  up  things  isn't  the  same  as  a  boy." 

He  acquiesced  reluctantly.  He  knew  more  about  their 
father  than  she  did,  and  was  most  suspicious  of  him 


RUTH  HOBDAY  101 

when  he  was  most  elated.  As  he  turned  at  the  door  he 
grumbled : 

"  I'm  giving  in  to  you,  but  I'm  wrong.  It  isn't  as  if 
I  knew  what  I  wanted  to  do.  I  don't." 

"  But  you  will  know,  Leslie.  .  .  .  I'm  going  out 
now.  Won't  you  take  me  to  the  tram  ?  " 

He  slung  his  shabby  school  cap  on  his  head  and  walked 
with  her,  a  silent  escort  except  for  one  observation: 

"  We  never  seem  to  have  a  jolly  time  somehow.  I 
want  you  to  have  a  jolly  time  before  it  is  too  late.  .  .  . 
You're  not  bad-looking,  Ruth,  but  you  freeze  any  one 
who  ever  looks  at  you.  .  .  .  The  chaps  I  bring  to  the 
house  are  afraid  of  you." 

It  was  not  his  words  that  hurt  her,  but  the  knowledge 
that  he  was  unhappy.  He  must  be  suffering  terrible  to 
talk  like  that.  .  .  .  And  was  it  true.  Was  she  for- 
midable? Had  she  already  begun  to  harden  in  her  de- 
fiant refusal  ever  to  apologize  for  her  existence,  although 
she  lived  in  a  suburb  and  worked  in  the  City? 


VIII 
WESTMINSTER 

SIR  SEYMOUR  TRENHAM  had  taken  a  furnished  house  in 
Westminster  because  he  imagined  that  his  services  would 
only  be  required  for  a  few  months,  and  there  was  no 
reason  for  disturbing  his  household  in  the  North.  He 
brought  with  him  his  valet,  a  cook,  and  a  housemaid  and 
left  the  rest  of  his  domestic  staff  to  his  wife,  whose  ambi- 
tions to  shine  in  the  social  life  of  London  he  vetoed. 
His  wife  was  very  wealthy,  very  provincial,  and  he  was 
in  his  heart  ashamed  of  her,  because  she  was  ashamed  of 
the  city  of  her  origin.  He  had,  or  thought  he  had,  ac- 
cepted the  Birthday  Honours  title  conferred  on  him  to 
please  her,  and  it  had  only  had  the  effect  of  turning  her 
thoughts  to  London  from  which  his  were  averted  be- 
cause in  his  early  maturity  he  had  had  to  leave  it  to  find 
recognition  of  his  ability.  .  .  .  He  was  a  handsome 
man,  who  had  cultivated  the  appearance  of  hard  strength, 
and  though  he  was  not  born  in  the  North  had  outdone 
the  Northerner  in  the  qualities  which  they  accounted  vir- 
tues— shrewdness,  stubborn  pugnacity,  conviction  of 
superiority,  but  when  he  moved  to  London  and  was 
established  in  his  comfortable  house  in  North  Street  he 
was  often  dogged  by  a  strange  dazed  feeling  that  the 
life  he  had  built  up  in  the  North  had  nothing  to  do  with 
him  and  had  been  part  of  a  dream  adventure  from  which 
he  had  awakened.  His  life,  though  brilliantly  successful, 
had  not  been  what  it  ought  to  have  been.  At  home  he 

IDS 


WESTMINSTER  103 


had  absolute  power  and  authority,  but  here  he  had  to 
refer  to  others  who  consulted  his  opinion  but  often 
ignored  it.  He  could  not  longer  dictate,  but  had  to  con- 
sider others.  He  could  no  longer  go  straight  for  what 
he  wanted,  but  had  to  negotiate  and  steer  round  awk- 
ward situations  and  persons.  .  .  .  The  disturbance  and 
mortification  in  his  views  were  considerable,  and  he  was 
glad  to  be  alone  to  readjust  himself.  The  fussiness  of 
London  at  first  irritated  and  then  amused  him,  and  Lon- 
doners seemed  to  him  a  race  as  foreign  to  the  people  he 
was  used  to  as  the  French.  .  .  .  Ah!  He  deserved  a 
holiday.  He  and  his  colleagues  had  worked  for  twenty 
years  to  be  ready  for  this  great  emergency  when  it  came. 
They  at  least  had  been  prepared,  and  now  with  a  good 
conscience  he  could  sink  into  London's  indolence — for 
his  holiday.  ...  A  return  to  a  bachelor  existence  was 
a  good  thing.  His  club  had  the  best  cooking  in  London. 
He  made  friends  quickly,  and  was  asked  out  to  dinner 
where  people  listened  awfully  as  he  talked  as  one  who 
knew  about  big  guns  and  explosives.  His  firm's  machine- 
gun  had  made  good,  and  it  was  a  pleasure  to  all  to  hear 
him — discreetly — talk  about  it.  ...  He  bought  a  great 
many  new  clothes,  laid  down  a  good  cellar  of  wines,  and 
revelled  in  the  new  note  of  distinction  in  his  life.  It 
was,  of  course,  what  he  ought  always  to  have  had.  He 
wrote  to  his  wife  every  day,  and  promised  her  that  if 
the  war  went  on  for  more  than  six  months  longer  she 
should  join  him. 

He  was  treated  almost  with  homage  as  one  of  the 
elect  few  who  knew  their  way  about  in  the  strange  new 
life  that  had  suddenly  crashed  in  upon  the  elegant  pre- 
occupations of  the  capital,  and  this  so  pleased  him  that 
he  could  afford  to  be  generous.  At  a  dinner-table  he 


104  PINK  ROSES 


was  something  comfortably  unmoved  and  solid.  When 
ladies  or  literary  gentlemen  deplored  the  loss  of  life  he 
would  say  with  a  snap  of  his  wide,  thin-lipped  mouth : 

"  There  are  plenty  left." 

It  pleased  him  to  contrast  himself  in  London  now  with 
himself  as  he  had  been  in  London  in  the  old  days,  poor 
and  friendless  and  aching  with  unheeded  ambition,  and 
it  was  in  such  a  mood  that  Charles  Hobday's  letter  found 
him.  .  .  .  Poor  old  unpractical  Hobday!  Of  course 
he  remembered  him  with  his  brain  seething  with  so  many 
ideas  that  he  could  not  sort  them  out.  Old  Hobday 
knew  but  could  never  apply  his  knowledge,  though  he 
had  often  thrown  out  hints  that  upon  research  by  a 
cooler  mind  had  proved  fruitful.  ...  Of  course  old 
Hobday  would  have  a  bad  time.  The  paper  on  which  he 
wrote  pointed  to  a  declension  to  the  brink  of  disaster. 
In  a  moment  of  kindly  caprice  Trenham  answered  his 
letter. 

He  was  out  when  Ruth  called,  and  his  valet,  suspicious 
of  London  and  London  ways,  was  reluctant  to  admit  her, 
but  she  insisted  that  it  was  most  important.  Sir  Sey- 
mour had  written  to  her  father  who  was  lying  ill,  and 
she  could  not  return  without  seeing  him.  She  had  her 
way,  and  was  allowed  to  sit  in  the  hall  until  Sir  Seymour 
returned. 

What  a  delightful  house  it  was!  The  hall  was 
panelled,  and  the  stairs  had  an  oak  balustrade.  They 
were  covered  with  a  cool  grey  horsehair  carpet,  and  the 
floor's  polished  surface  was  relieved  by  two  beautiful 
Persian  rugs.  On  the  walls  hung  old  English  coloured 
prints. 

^  It  was  the  happiest  moment  of  Ruth's  life,  the  first 
time  she  had  ever  been  at  one  with  her  surroundings. 


WESTMINSTER  105 


Her  tired  nerves  were  soothed,  her  weary  anxious  soul 
plucked  up  confidence.  Her  eyes  traced  out  the  pattern 
of  the  Persian  rugs  and  lit  up  with  the  grotesque  humour 
of  the  prints.  The  house  had  an  atmosphere  that  was 
native  to  her.  It  was  not  like  the  houses  in  which  she 
had  lived,  for  it  had  a  history,  and  it  had  a  quality,  and 
it  was  not  like  Uncle  Henry's  house  in  Bayswater,  for 
there  was  no  ostentation  in  it.  In  a  little  while  she  was 
quite  sure  that  her  visit  was  not  in  vain. 

She  was  kept  waiting  nearly  two  hours.  The  valet 
brought  her  a  cup  of  tea  and  the  weekly  paper,  and  she 
was  immersed  in  these  when  a  key  was  thrust  into  the 
latch  and  Sir  Seymour  came  in,  returning  from  a  dinner- 
party at  which  his  expert  knowledge  of  guns  and  explo- 
sives had  inspired  confidence  in  various  peeresses.  He 
had  begun  to  acquire  the  London  manner  and  the  pos- 
session of  a  social  personality  which,  partly  owing  to  its 
novelty,  he  regarded  as  superior  to  that  to  which  he  had 
been  accustomed.  Never  had  he  been  a  source  of  such 
pleasure  to  himself.  It  had  been  well  worth  the  long 
exile  to  come  so  completely  into  his  own  at  last.  If  he 
had  had  his  success  earlier  it  might  have  spoiled  him. 
That  he  had  married  during  his  exile,  and  had  children 
in  his  exile,  was  incidental,  like — who  was  it?  Oh  yes, 
Garibaldi  in  South  America,  though  Lady  Trenham  was 
not  to  be  compared  with  the  fair  Peruvian.  Was  she  a 
Peruvian?  Sir  Seymour  stopped  on  the  Persian  rug 
nearest  the  door  to  decide  this  question.  .  .  .  Gari- 
baldi was  a  great  man,  too,  though  he  could  not  have 
made  much  of  a  show  in  modern  war,  and  what  would 
Napoleon  have  done?  He  would  have  sat  in  an  office 
scientifically  manipulating  a  great  organization.  The 
grand  figures  of  this  colossal  business  were  invisible. 


io6  PINK  ROSES 


Power  was  now  to  the  strong,  fame  to  the  fools.  .  .  . 
Sir  Seymour  had  just  begun  to  think  of  the  things  he 
might  have  said  at  his  dinner-party  when  he  became 
aware  of  something  unusual  in  his  delightful  bachelor 
quarters.  Oh  yes,  his  valet  was  not  there  to  take  his 
overcoat,  but  that  was  his  own  fault  for  forgetting  to 
ring  the  bell. 

He  started  as  he  heard  a  small  voice  saying: 

"  Good  evening.     Are  you  Sir  Seymour  Trenham  ?  " 

He  saw  a  slender  grey-clad  figure  holding  out  a 
letter. 

"My  name  is  Ruth  Hobday,"  she  said;  "my  father 
was  so  pleased  to  get  your  letter.  He  would  have  come 
himself  only  he  has  had  a  slight  accident,  so  I  had  to 
come,  and  I  waited  because  there  is  no  time  to  be  lost." 

"  I  would  have  given  you  an  appointment.  I  am  sorry 
you  have  been  kept  waiting." 

"  I  couldn't  have  come  during  the  day." 

"  Oh!    Have  you  turned  out  for  war-work?" 

"  No.     I  worked  before  the  war." 

He  led  her  into  his  little  study  at  the  back  of  the 
dining-room:  a  panelled  room  with  a  powder-closet  off 
it  which  had  been  turned  into  a  case  for  old  china,  silver, 
and  fans.  Again  Ruth  was  overcome  with  a  sense  of 
finding  old  familiar  things. 

Sir  Seymour  opened  the  letter  and  read  it  perfunc- 
torily. 

"  How  is  your  father?  "  he  asked. 

"  He  will  be  in  bed  for  a  week  or  two.  That  is  why  it 
is  so  important.  He  is  very  excited.  ..." 

'  Yes.    I  remember,"  said  Sir  Seymour  with  a  smile. 

'  Then  you  know  what  father  is  ? "  said  Ruth. 
"  People  have  always  taken  advantage  of  him." 


WESTMINSTER  107 


Sir  Seymour  watched  her  tired,  pretty  face,  and 
guessed  some  of  her  story.  That  kind  of  man  always 
produced  a  large  family  as  he  gradually  lost  hope  of  pro- 
ducing anything  else. 

"  And  yet  I  remember  the  day  when  I  used  to  borrow 
half-crowns  from  your  father.  .  .  .  He  expected  every- 
thing too  easily.  A  few  years  in  the  North  would 
have  done  him  a  world  of  good.  I  wonder  he  never 
tried  it." 

"  Father  couldn't  work  under  other  people.  If  he 
hadn't  been  a  scientist  he  could  have  been  a  lawyer  and 
a  partner  in  his  father's  firm." 

"  Ah — yes.  .  .  .  Mr.  Henry  Hobday,"  smiled  Sir 
Seymour.  "  Oddly  enough  I  met  him  only  a  few  days 
before  I  had  your  father's  letter.  ...  By  the  way,  it 
isn't  quite  clear  what  your  father  wants  me  to  do." 

"  He  has  invented  something  for  the  war.  ...  I 
,.  .  .  suppose  you  couldn't  come  and  see  him.  It  is 
very  important,  because  we  want  to  keep  my  brother  at 
school." 

It  was  out  before  she  could  help  herself.  The 
luminous  charm  of  this  house  had  made  her  realize 
acutely  the  shabby  penury  in  which  she  had  lived,  and 
.  .  .  somehow,  because  Sir  Seymour  had  known  her 
father  and  spoke  of  him  in  a  friendly  way  there  was  no 
reason  for  her  to  be  on  her  guard. 

"  Father  says  people  are  getting  thousands  out  of  the 
Government,  and  I  hear  tales  in  the  City,  and  father  is 
really  a  very  clever  man.  My  mother  used  to  say  that 
if  he  hadn't  been  a  Hobday  he  would  have  been  one  of 
the  richest  men  in  England." 

Sir  Seymour  leaned  back  in  his  chair.  Ruth's  voice 
pleased  him,  and  she  was  touchingly  young.  Obviously 


I08  PINK  ROSES 


she  had  inherited  her  father's  nice  credulity  and  his  un- 
attainable innocence. 

"  He  had  great  abilities,  very  great  abilities,  but  now- 
adays one  needs  much  persistence.  ...  I  should  say 
you  had  it." 

Really  she  was  very  pretty  as  she  blushed,  and  so 
delicate  and  sensitive.  It  was  all  wrong,  hideously 
wrong,  that  she  should  be  anxious  and  worried  and 
weighted  with  responsibilities. 

"  I  shall  be  only  too  glad  if  I  can  do  anything  to  help. 
.  .  .  We  scientific  men  have  had  to  wait  for  the  war 
to  give  us  our  chance  in  this  country.  Will  you  come 
and  see  me  again  in  three  days'  time,  and  I  will  let  you 
know  what  I  think." 

"About  the  same  time?"  asked  Ruth  hopefully. 

"  I  will  be  in — for  you,"  replied  Sir  Seymour. 

"  My  father  will  be  pleased.  I  must  go  back  to  him 
now.  I  shall  have  great  difficulty  in  keeping  him  in 
bed." 

She  held  out  her  hand,  and  her  new  friend  took  it  in 
his. 

"  You  won't  mind  my  asking  you,"  he  said,  "  but  what 
work  do  you  do  ?  " 

"  Oh,  just  office  work.     It  was  the  easiest  to  learn." 

He  gave  her  hand  a  friendly  shake  and  said : 

"  I'll  think  about  that  too." 

He  took  her  to  the  door  and  stood  watching  her  as, 
with  her  heart  beating  and  her  thoughts  racing,  she  sped 
along  the  little  street.  An  old  clock  in  the  hall  struck 
eleven.  He  sighed.  Ah!  after  all  there  was  nothing  like 
youth,  so  easily  aflame,  so  lightly  plunged  into  suffering, 
but  through  everything  buoyant  and  full  of  Spring. 
.  .  .  How  delightful  it  had  been  to  find  her  there,  and 


WESTMINSTER  109 


through  all  her  intense  nervousness  and  anxiety  to  hear 
the  indomitable  note  of  youth  in  her  voice. 

As  for  Ruth,  she  was  near  tears.  It  was  the  first  time 
she  had  ever  relaxed,  the  first  time  she  had  found  a 
friend  upon  whom  she  felt  she  could  rely. 

"  Oh !  He  is  good !  "  she  thought  almost  in  ecstasy. 
"  He  is  a  wonderful  man.  He  understands.  He  can 
even  understand  father,  and  no  one  has  ever  done  that. 
.  .  .  And  what  beautiful  things  he  has  in  his  house! 
Leslie  shall  be  like  him.  He  shall  be  a  great,  successful 
man  and  have  a  house  like  that  full  of  taste  and  ease 
and  comfort.  ...  I  must  make  things  nice  at  home 
for  Leslie.  I'm  sure  he  needs  them.  He  would  appre- 
cite  them.  ..." 

The  house  at  Highgate  was  impossibly  dull  and  dingy. 
The  furniture  was  good,  but  too,  too  Hobday,  a  name 
that  for  Ruth  as  for  her  mother  stood  for  prosperous 
insensibility.  The  furniture  bulked  and  bulged  in  the 
little  house,  and  seemed  to  protest  against  its  setting.  It 
was  nearly  twelve  as  Ruth  entered,  but  she  ran  upstairs 
at  once  to  her  father's  room  and  found  him  almost 
feverish  with  impatience  working  out  sums  on  a  grubby 
piece  of  paper.  The  figures  he  was  manipulating  were 
enormous,  running  into  thousands. 

"Well?"  he  said,  looking  under  his  bandages  at  her 
hands  as  though  he  expected  her  there  and  then  to  pour 
a  stream  of  golden  sovereigns  on  to  his  bed. 

"  Oh,  father,"  said  Ruth;  "  I  have  seen  him.  I  waited 
for  him,  and  he  is  the  nicest,  nicest  man." 

"  Yes.    Yes."    Charles  tapped  on  the  bed  impatiently. 

"  He  is  going  to  let  me  know  in  three  days.  I  am  to 
go  and  see  him.  He  remembers  you  perfectly.  He  says 
you  have  very,  very  great  abilities." 


no  PINK  ROSES 


"Generous,"  said  Charles,  rather  petulantly.  "If  it 
had  not  been  for  your  mother  and  your  Uncle  Henry  I 
should  be  where  he  is  now  or  higher.  I  consider  that 
your  Uncle  Henry  by  his  refusal  to  finance  my  early 
projects  has  robbed  me  of  not  less  than  sixty  thousand 
pounds.  ..." 

"  Yes.  Yes.  I  know,  father.  But  that  is  all  over 
now.  I'm  sure  that  Sir  Seymour  will  help.  He  spoke 
of  you  with  real  affection.  He  did  indeed,  and  said  he 
remembered  the  time  when  you  lent  him  half  a 
crown." 

"Ah!  ha!"  chuckled  Charles.  "The  lion  and  the 
mouse  .  .  .  But  I  am  not  like  other  men.  I  don't 
want  riches.  I  only  want  acknowledgment,  and,  Ruth, 
we  will  pay  my  brother  Henry  every  penny  of  the  paltry 
sums  he  has  advanced  us.  I  will  walk  into  the  office 
myself  and  write  him  out  a  cheque  in  the  presence  of 
those  insufferable  insolent  clerks  of  his.  I  will  repay 
him  with  interest.  And  you  shall  never  go  near  the  City 
again.  I  hate  the  City." 

"  Don't  count  on  it  too  much,  father.  But  I'm  sure 
he  will  help.  He  is  such  a  kind  man,  and,  of  course,  he 
is  very  influential." 

"  All  my  life,"  said  Charles,  "  I  have  waited  for  the 
big  thing  with  a  patience  that  no  one  has  ever  under- 
stood. I  have  refused  to  waste  my  time  on  trifles  and 
trifling  people,  because  I  knew  that  my  hour  would 
come.  How  I  did  not  know.  When  I  did  not  know. 
...  At  last,  dear  child,  you  understand  your  long- 
suffering,  far-seeing  father.  .  .  .  The  long  view  pays. 
It  always  pays.  .  .  .  Mark  my  words,  before  the  war 
is  over  I  shall  be  marching  into  Buckingham  Palace  in 
knee  breeches  and  silk  stockings.  A  tap  on  the  shoulder, 


WESTMINSTER  in 


and  my  brother  Henry  will  die  of  a  rush  of  envy  to 
the  spleen." 

Ruth  laughed  at  him.     He  was  like  a  boastful  child. 

"  Leslie  is  the  important  person,"  she  said.  "  His 
master  says  his  essays  are  quite  extraordinary,  and  he 
speaks  at  the  Debating  Society." 

But  Charles  was  not  interested.  His  children  had 
forced  their  way  into  the  world,  and  he  had  no  doubt 
that  they  would  force  their  way  through  it. 

"  I  leave  that  to  you,"  he  said,  as  thousands  of  times 
he  had  said  to  his  unfortunate  wife.  "  I  leave  that  to 
you.  I  am  no  judge  of  character,  and  my  way  in  life 
has  been  so  extraordinary  that  God  forbid  that  any  son 
of  mine  should  follow  it." 

Ruth  knew  that  it  was  useless  to  attempt  to  argue. 
The  antagonism  between  father  and  son  was  too  deeply 
rooted  for  her  to  move  it.  She  could  only  serve  the  one 
through  the  other  by  self-abnegation,  and  she  could  feel 
now  that  it  only  exasperated  her  father  that  while  she 
was  helping  him  she  should  have  any  thought  for  Leslie 
in  her  mind.  .  .  .  And  in  this,  too,  he  was  a  Hobday, 
leaving  the  parental  responsibilities  to  social  machinery. 
For  the  normal  Hobdays  there  were  schools,  universi- 
ties, professions,  marriages,  the  firm :  for  the  abnormal 
— nothing.  The  problem  of  providing  for  children  with- 
out social  machinery  was  too  difficult  for  Charles,  who 
therefore  brushed  it  aside. 

But  for  Ruth  that  was  the  ever-present  haunting  prob- 
lem. Leslie  could  be  something  so  much  better  than  a 
Hobday.  He,  too,  belonged  to  that  life  of  panelled 
rooms,  Persian  rugs,  silver,  china,  fans. 

She  was  most  deeply  stirred  by  her  evening's  experi- 
ence, and  she  lay  for  hours  in  her  bed  dreaming  of 


H2  PINK  ROSES 


Leslie,  escaping  the  war  through  being  too  young  for  it. 
and  gradually  developing  into  a  fine  man  who  would 
inevitably  find  his  way  to  Westminster,  where  he  would 
live  in  a  delightful  house,  be  met  at  his  front  door  by  an 
efficient  valet,  dine  out,  play  the  host,  attend  Parliament 
and  make  speeches  which  would  hold  his  audience  spell- 
bound; he  would  travel,  perhaps  write  books,  collect 
rarities  and  rich  stuffs,  marry  a  beautiful  girl  of  a 
wealthy  and  powerful  family,  and  forget,  forget,  forget 
for  ever  the  struggling  squalid  years  in  Highgate,  even 
if  it  meant  forgetting  his  sister  Ruth.  .  .  .  Yes,  she 
would  even  cut  herself  out  of  his  life  if  she  were  ever 
to  remind  him  of  these  days  overshadowed  by  Henry 
Hobday,  and  the  City,  and  people  like  themselves  who 
could  not  make  both  ends  meet.  .  .  .  She  thought  of 
Westminster  as  the  living  heart  of  the  world.  In  the 
old  days  her  mother's  family  had  had  their  seat  in  the 
House  as  of  right,  as  they  had  their  livings  for  younger 
sons  and  their  commissions  in  the  Army  and  the  Navy 
because  they  were  known  at  Westminster  and  could 
move  there  with  the  necessary  grace.  There  were  por- 
traits of  a  few  of  the  old  men  in  the  house,  even  more 
out  of  place  in  it  than  the  Hobday  furniture.  Elegant, 
witty  faces  they  had — one  of  them  amazingly  like  Leslie, 
and  it  was  that  elegance,  that  wit,  that  Ruth  desired  him 
to  have  always,  innate  qualities  that  would  mark  him  out 
and  make  it  impossible  for  him  to  share  the  featureless 
existence  all  around  them.  .  .  .  No  other  part  of  Lon- 
don that  she  knew  had  so  preserved  its  atmosphere  as 
Westminster,  and  she  counted  it  a  symbolically  fortunate 
accident  that  Sir  Seymour  Trenham  should  live  in  North 
Street. 

Once  she  had  set  Leslie's  feet  on  the  right  road  the 


WESTMINSTER  113 


rest  would  be  easy.  It  all  depended  on  Trenham  and  her 
father's  inspiration.  Perhaps  after  all  there  had  been 
some  purpose  in  her  father's  crazy  obstinacy,  more  in  it 
than  hatred  of  his  family  and  refusal  to  accept  its  stale 
traditions,  owing  to  the  accident  of  meeting  and  marry- 
ing her  mother  who,  indulgent  and  kindly  with  the  poor, 
had  passionately  detested  everything  and  everybody 
middle-class.  Hobday!  How  could  her  mother  have 
accepted  such  a  name  in  marriage?  And  what  had  her 
father  been  like  when  he  was  young?  Like  Leslie,  per- 
haps: passionate,  moody,  silent,  aloof.  .  .  .  That  was 
possible,  and  without  an  effort  on  her  part,  Leslie  would 
be  pathetically  wasted  and  the  whole  family  would  be 
submerged. 

Thinking  of  Trenham  as  she  lay  staring  into  the  night, 
Ruth  said: 

"He  must!    He  must!    He  shall!" 


IX 
ROMANTICISM 

FOR  the  first  time  in  his  life  Seymour  Trenham  was  con- 
sciously romantic  about  himself,  saw  himself  as  a  figure, 
and  he  was  not  satisfied.  His  life  had  been  devoted  to 
the  romance  of  big  guns,  huge  ships  of  war,  blast  fur- 
naces and  hardened  steel.  He  had  lived  among  tall  chim- 
neys and  gaunt  erections  belching  fire  night  and  day,  but 
now  in  London  all  that  had  fallen  away.  The  hard, 
remorseless  work  of  his  life  was  suspended,  perhaps  over 
for  ever.  London  was  giving  him  his  reward  in  the  life 
of  which  in  his  soul  he  had  always  dreamed,  luxury, 
ease,  leisure,  and  if  not  wit  then  the  show  of  it,  and  if 
not  manners,  then  some  appearance  of  them.  In  the 
North  people  had  been  too  hard  for  manners,  too  shrewd 
for  wit,  and  they  despised  any  attempt  to  put  a  polish  on 
life  which  they  liked  raw  and  strangely  savoured.  In 
London  the  day  only  began  when  it  was  time  to  bathe 
and  dress  for  dinner,  and  the  enjoyment  that  then  be- 
came possible  was  far  keener  than  any  that  has  to  be 
had  in  workaday  existence.  One  could  linger  over  food 
and  wine,  attend  a  theatre  or  a  concert,  pass  on  to  some 
pleasant  function  designed  for  the  exhibition  of  pretty 
women — for  charity  had  been  invoked  to  cover  the  con- 
tinuance of  gregarious  pleasures — or  alone  he  could 
enjoy  London  as  an  evening  city,  one  that  only  under 
twilight  showed  its  true  beauty  and  its  most  secret 
charm.  There  were  still  men  to  be  seen  in  Piccadilly 

114 


ROMANTICISM  115 


who  bore  in  their  faces  and  gait  the  stamp  of  London, 
old  men  ineffably  distinguished  with  rare  and  noble  Eng- 
lish faces,  men  who,  for  all  the  frightful  news  coming  in 
from  France,  were  unruffled  in  thought  or  in  emotion. 
Trenham  used  to  look  for  such  men  because  he  envied 
them.  Their  composure  was  deeper  than  his  own,  which 
was  based  upon  knowledge  while  theirs  was  unfath- 
omable. It  was,  as  he  phrased  it  to  himself,  the  only 
thing  in  the  world  to  which  he  would  take  off  his  hat. 
It  might  be  dethroned  from  the  seat  of  Government,  but 
it  would  never  lose  its  power  because  it  could  not  dimin- 
ish its  influence.  He  knew — who  better? — what  could 
be  done  by  work  and  research,  but  beyond  that  lay  this 
certainty,  this  composure  which  in  London  he  had  al- 
ways recognized  and  worshipped.  There  was  none  of  it 
in  the  North,  with  its  uneasy  reliance  on  money,  and 
probably  it  existed  nowhere  else  in  the  world.  .  .  .  To 
Trenham  it  was  like  a  haunting  perfume  with  which  in 
his  youth  he  had  been  intoxicated,  and  now,  at  the  sum- 
mit of  his  success,  he  could  not  but  desire  it,  and  seek  it 
out  that  it  might  loosen  the  stiffness  in  his  mind  and  the 
hardness  and  awkwardness  of  his  feelings.  Tailoring 
could  do  a  good  deal,  food  and  wine  much  more,  but 
what  Trenham  hoped  and  longed  for,  was  contact  with 
persons  of — quality,  and  he  was  continually  disap- 
pointed, perhaps  because  he  expected  people  to  be  as 
highly  finished  and  as  complete  in  their  perfection  as 
guns.  Yet  he  could  not  desist  from  his  hope,  and  every 
day  brought  him  nearer  his  purpose  of  himself  becoming 
the  immaculate  Londoner.  He  soon  discovered  that  his 
reading  left  much  to  be  desired,  and  he  bought  not  only 
the  books  of  the  moment  but  also  the  classics,  and  when 
he  discovered  the  Restoration  comedy  it  was  like  a 


PINK  ROSES 


revelation  to  him.  Here  they  were  in  being,  the  com- 
posed and  certain  men  and  women  of  his  admiring 
dreams.  Their  morals  of  course  offended  him,  but  he 
could  forgive  that  for  the  sake  of  their  manners.  They 
were  indolent  only  because  the  country  was  indolent,  tak- 
ing a  rest  after  the  Civil  War.  .  .  .  He  lived  in  hope 
that  presently  his  path  would  be  crossed  by  some  bril- 
liant lady  who  would  tease  and  please,  exasperate,  exult, 
and  satisfy  him — for  the  duration  of  the  war.  After 
that  he  would  return  to  the  North,  resume  his  life  of 
hard  work  and  domestic  felicity. 

He  felt  so  confident  that  his  life  would  not  pass  by 
without  its  romance  that  he  made  no  deliberate  effort  to 
find  it.  He  met  many  beautiful  women,  but  knew  at 
once  that  they  had  not  what  he  desired.  They  could 
flatter  but  not  move  him.  Flattery  was  very  sweet  to 
him,  but  he  desired  more. 

After  Ruth's  visit  to  him  he  found  himself  constantly 
remembering  her  voice,  not  so  much  with  words  as  for 
a  certain  note  in  it,  which  without  egoism  announced 
continually,  "  I  am  Ruth  Hobday,"  and  he  knew  that  he 
could  not  as  definitely  say,  "  I  am  Seymour  Trenham," 
for  he  was  a  career,  a  highly  specialized  intellect,  a  figure 
for  the  newspapers,  two  households,  a  war  discovery,  a 
dozen  other  things  that  could  not  readily  be  composed 
into  a  person,  and  the  people  among  whom  he  moved 
were  much  the  same;  they  were  clothes,  social  successes, 
wives,  husbands,  lovers  (in  the  technical  sense),  politi- 
cians, writers,  military  experts,  soldiers,  but  they  were 
not  persons,  and  the  most  successful  of  all  were  merely 
reflections  of  what  the  crowd  desired,  living  on  phrases 
— "  the  war  to  end  war  " — "  the  knock-out  blow  " 
"  carry  on " — "  keep  smiling."  .  .  .  Moving  among 


ROMANTICISM  117 


these  people  Trenham  could  not  shake  off  the  thought 
of  the  Hobdays,  Ruth  and  her  foolish  old  father  who 
had  refused  to  compromise  or  to  accept  the  subversion 
of  science  to  purely  commercial  ends.  He  thought  of 
them  so  much  that  on  the  day  appointed  for  Ruth's  re- 
turn Trenham  left  his  office  early,  and  was  all  impatience 
for  her  coming. 

In  the  old  days  in  the  laboratory  in  any  difficulty, 
everybody  had  always  gone  to  old  Hobday,  who  from 
his  immense  learning  could  generally  supply  a  hint,  and 
his  hints  were  nearly  always  fruitful.  It  was  so  now. 
He  had  thrown  out  a  hint  which,  if  it  were  worked  on, 
would  produce  valuable  results,  but  of  course  the  old 
man  himself  was  too  erratic  and  too  cocksure  to  do 
the  work.  In  the  ordinary  course  Trenham  would  have 
returned  such  a  specification  because  there  certainly  was 
not  time  to  test  the  conclusions  at  which  the  chemist 
had  jumped,  but  now  it  was  a  question  of  helping  Ruth 
who,  he  felt  sure,  was  suffering  from  financial  stress. 
What  a  shame  it  was !  He  had  prepared  for  her  a  letter 
on  Ministry  paper  thanking  Charles  Hobday  for  his 
valuable  suggestion,  and  offering  him  a  sum  of  £300 
for  the  idea.  This  letter  he  left  open,  and  when  she 
called,  almost  ill  with  anxiety  and  eager  expectation,  he 
handed  it  to  her  and  turned  his  back  on  her  to  escape 
seeing  her  emotion. 

"Oh!"  she  cried.  "Oh!  I  knew.  .  .  .  Is  it  really 
worth  all  that?" 

She  was  not  thinking  of  the  money,  but  of  the  impor- 
tance of  her  father's  work. 

"  Every  penny  of  it,"  said  Trenham. 

"Thank  you;  thank  you,"  cried  Ruth,  returning  the 
letter  to  its  envelope  and  looking  gratefully  at  him  for 


PINK  ROSES 


letting  her  see  it.  She  could  not  have  borne  the  suspense 
of  carrying  it  home  to  her  father. 

"  I  have  been  thinking  it  over,"  said  Trenham,  "  and 
I  could  make  arrangements  for  your  father  to  work  in 
one  of  the  Ministry's  laboratories.  .  .  .  But  I  should 
like  to  help  you  too.  The  staff  of  my  department  is 
increasing  rapidly.  .  .  .  You  would  like  that  better 
than  the  City.  ..." 

"You  are  too  good,"  faltered  Ruth,  and  she  added 
with  a  smile,  "  You  don't  want  too  many  Hobdays  on 
your  salary  list." 

"  We  are  taking  on  whole  families,"  chuckled  Tren- 
ham, "  at  a  reduction." 

•Ruth  without  her  anxieties  was  another  being.  Her 
youth  and  her  natural  health  began  at  once  to  assert 
themselves,  and  for  the  first  time  for  many  months  she 
began  to  talk  without  repression.  Trenham  leaned  back 
in  his  chair,  and  savoured  to  the  full  her  high  spirits, 
and,  warming  to  his  friendliness,  she  told  him  the  whole 
story,  piecing  a  good  deal  of  it  together  impromptu  and 
in  flashes  of  understanding :  her  father's  quarrel  with  the 
Hobdays,  her  mother's  contempt  of  them  widening  the 
breach,  the  deplorable  effect  of  it  on  her  father's  imprac- 
ticability, her  mother's  illness,  her  own  efforts  to  save 
the  situation,  her  desperate  desire  to  save  her  brother 
from  a  disastrous  beginning  to  his  career,  and  when  she 
had  finished  Trenham  began  to  tell  her  about  himself, 
how  he  had  fought  his  way  up  out  of  a  poverty-stricken 
middle-class  family,  narrowly  religious  and  hostile  to 
any  enterprise,  and  how  he  had  devoted  himself  to  the 
great  firm  in  the  North  in  which  he  was  now  a  partner, 
and  how  he  found  himself  often  wondering  if  it  had 
been  worth  while,  and  whether  it  would  not  have  been 


ROMANTICISM  119 


better  to  devote  himself  to  pure  research,  almost  the 
only  disinterested  career  now  left  open,  and  Ruth  said: 

"  That  is  what  father  wanted  to  be — disinterested." 

"  It  is  almost  an  offence  nowadays  to  be  so,  and  one 
needs  to  be  very  strong  to  try  it." 

Several  times  during  their  talk  the  valet  had  entered 
to  tell  Sir  Seymour  that  dinner  was  ready,  and  at  last 
he  came  in  and  said  that  the  cook  was  threatening  to 
leave  unless  her  dinner  was  eaten. 

"  Won't  you  stay  ?  "  asked  Trenham.     "  Do !  " 

And  Ruth  stayed. 

On  New  Year's  Eve  every  year  her  father  and  she 
were  commanded  to  dine  at  the  Henry  Hobdays.  That 
was  her  only  experience  of  good  cooking.  She  had  never 
dined  at  a  house  where  the  cooking  was  of  paramount 
importance,  and  where  a  meal  was  made  an  exquisite 
transition  from  morning  to  afternoon,  afternoon  to 
evening,  or  evening  to  night.  It  was  so  here,  in  this 
delightful  house  where  everything  was  perfectly  in  its 
place,  and  nothing  was  ostentatious  or  obtrusive  in  its 
function.  What  was  wanted  was  ready  to  hand.  Noth- 
ing that  was  not  wanted  was  allowed.  That  was  the 
difference  between  this  house  and  Uncle  Henry's,  which 
was  overloaded  and  full  of  unnecessary  articles  of  fur- 
niture. 

Ruth  smiled  with  pleasure  at  the  polished  glass,  the 
shining  silver,  the  dark  pool  of  the  smooth  mahogany 
table  which  reflected  the  light  and  dimly  all  the  gracious 
things  in  the  room.  She  and  her  new  friend  ate  in 
silence,  so  deeply  did  they  enjoy  each  other's  society  and 
the  delicious  meal  laid  before  them.  To  Ruth  it 
savoured  of  magic,  and  not  as  her  uncle's  magnificence 
did,  of  money.  That  was  the  difference.  Money  here 


120  PINK  ROSES 


was  flsed  to  serve  personality  and  taste.  It  revealed  in  a 
glowing  ruddy  light,  most  subtle  and  most  delicate,  the 
distinguished  character  of  her  host,  who  sat  there  re- 
specting and  enjoying  her  silence.  She  felt  that  she 
could  never  be  the  same  again,  the  force  of  circum- 
stances that  had  cramped  and  repressed  her  was  driven 
back  and  rendered  impotent  to  hurt  those  for  whom  she 
had  sacrificed  herself.  .  .  .  She  was  glad  that  Tren- 
ham  was  grey-haired,  glad  that  he  was  so  handsome;  he 
seemed  to  her  perfect  in  his  perfect  setting.  It  was 
nothing  to  her  that  he  was  a  great  man,  one  of  the  grand 
successes  of  the  war,  a  power  behind  the  scenes,  and 
so-on;  she  appreciated  him  as  he  was  and  as  he  desired 
to  be,  and  it  was  a  very  few  minutes  before  she  had  a 
sense  that  he  and  she  had  been  sitting  there  for  a  very 
long  time,  and  that  they  both  belonged  to  the  house  and 
were  as  old  as  it,  that  is,  able  to  enter  into  all  the  moods 
and  all  the  histories  it  had  contained.  .  .  .  He  half 
closed  his  eyes  as  he  saw  how  lovingly  she  touched  the 
old  glass,  how  intimately  her  fingers  responded  to  the 
heavy,  smooth  old  silver,  soft  and  amazingly  responsive 
to  hands  that  loved  it. 

In  the  centre  of  the  table  was  a  great  silver  bowl  in 
which  pink  roses  floated  on  rose-scented  water.  Tren- 
ham  looked  from  them  to  Ruth's  face  as  she  kindled 
under  her  pleasure.  Into  her  cheeks  had  crept  just  the 
same  voluptuous  tenderness  of  fleeting  delicately  poised 
health  and  rapture,  and  upon  her  whole  being  was  the 
bloom  of  fine  humanity  which  to  him  was  of  all  that  life 
can  give  the  most  desirable.  He  recognized  it  at  once. 
She  was  a  person  of  quality,  no  matter  what  the  facts  of 
her  life  might  have  been  or  the  errand  upon  which  she 
had  come.  And  she  was  so  young,  so  innocent,  so  frail, 


ROMANTICISM  121 


as  frail  as  the  roses  floating  exquisite  in  their  bloom  as 
she  in  hers. 

"  After  the  war,"  he  said,  "  I  think  people  will  be 
able  to  be  more  themselves.  They  won't  be  stifled  and 
afraid,  or  driven  by  routine.  .  .  .  Many  of  us  have 
been  shocked  into  knowing  that  we  haven't  been  our- 
selves, but  have  been  dragged  into  lives  that  we  did  not 
particularly  want,  surrendering  to  mediocrity  because  it 
was  so  easy.  ...  I  have  enjoyed  to-night  more  than 
anything  I  ever  remember,  and  yet  nothing  particularly 
wonderful  has  happened." 

"  A  great  deal  for  me,"  said  Ruth,  smiling  at  his 
solemnity.  "  I  ought  not  to  have  stayed." 

"  Oh !  yes,  you  ought,"  he  replied,  a  little  sharply. 
"  It's  high  time  we  began  to  do  what  we  want  to  do. 
What  we  want  and  what  we  ought  in  the  long  run  gen- 
erally proves  to  be  the  same." 

"  I  wasn't  thinking  of  that,"  she  said.  "  I  agree,  but 
I  was  thinking  of  my  father  waiting  to  hear.  I'm  sure 
he  believes  that  the  whole  war  depends  on  his  dis- 
covery." 

"  I  believe  that,"  chuckled  Trenham.  "  I  was  quite 
convinced  that  the  fate  of  the  German  Empire  was  set- 
tled when  I  was  invited  up  to  London.  .  .  .  But  the 
war  goes  on,  as  regardless  of  Empire  as  of  individuals. 
.  .  .  When  a  man  has  a  carbuncle  on  his  neck  he  thinks 
he  is  all  carbuncle,  but  he  soon  discovers  that  he  remains 
pretty  much  the  same.  The  war  is  like  that.  It  is  only 
all  carbuncle  to  the  Press  now.  The  rest  of  us  go  on 
pretty  much  the  same." 

"  Will  it  go  on  for  many  years  longer?  " 

"  I  don't  know.  It  began  for  no  particular  reason, 
and  it  will  stop  for  no  particular  reason." 


122  PINK  ROSES 


"  I  suppose  people  who  know  are  sensible  about  it." 

"  It  would  be  a  bad  look-out  for  the  world  if  they 
weren't." 

"  As  long  as  Leslie  doesn't  go,"  said  Ruth,  "  I  can 
get  on  without  thinking  about  it.  I  don't  argue.  It 
just  is.  If  Leslie  went  I  should  be  in  it,  and  I  should 
have  to  try  to  understand." 

They  had  coffee  in  the  study,  and  he  showed  her  his 
books,  and  was  astonished  at  the  amount  she  had  read. 

"Do  you  like  pictures?"  he  asked. 

"  I've  been  to  the  National  Gallery,  and  I  always  read 
about  exhibitions  in  the  papers,  and  go  to  see  them  some- 
times, but  it  isn't  the  same  as  books,  because  Leslie 
doesn't  care  for  them.  He  likes  music  though,  especially 
old  English  music,  Dr.  Arne  and  Purcell  and  Handel; 
next  to  that  he  likes  Modern  French." 

"  You  must  bring  Leslie  to  see  me." 

"Oh!    May  I?" 

"  I  feel  I  know  him  already  through  you.  I  have 
boys  of  my  own." 

She  started  at  that.  It  was  the  first  hint  that  the 
whole  of  his  life  was  not  in  this  house  in  North  Street. 
She  looked  across  at  him,  and  the  momentary  panic  she 
was  in  disappeared.  That  was  no  affair  of  hers,  and 
she  would  not  let  it  intrude  upon  this  entrancing  adven- 
ture. .  .  .  All  the  same  the  power  of  the  enchantment 
was  weakened,  and  she  looked  for  a  loophole  in  the  con- 
versation which  would  permit  her  to  escape. 

He  was  reluctant  for  her  to  go.  The  evening's 
intimacy  with  her  had  rounded  off  the  life  he  had  created 
for  himself,  and  had  savoured  this  bonne  bouche  of 
romanticism  with  which  he  rewarded  the  strenuous 
endeavours  of  his  career.  Human  relations  had  always 


ROMANTICISM  123 


been  subsidiary  to  his  other  activities,  for,  like  the  epi- 
cure he  was,  he  had  kept  them  for  the  last,  to  be  tasted 
when  by  regular  exercise  his  faculties  should  have  been 
disciplined  and  refined.  .  .  .  He  had  watched  Ruth 
grow  in  this  one  evening  from  a  shy  girl  into  a  delicious 
creature  in  whom  was  that  which  he  had  always  longed 
for — charm  and  subtlety  of  taste. 

"  Yes,"  he  said,  as  she  got  up  to  go,  "  you  must  bring 
your  brother  to  see  me  and  we  will  have  great  times 
together.  Tell  your  father  that  I  will  see  to  it  that  his 
work  is  not  shelved,  and  he  shall  have  the  run 
of  one  of  our  laboratories,  and  of  course  a  retaining 
salary." 

This  was  sheer  magic,  and  Ruth,  of  course,  had  no 
idea  that  it  emanated  from  herself. 

Trenham  insisted  on  escorting  her  to  the  Underground 
Station.  He  wanted  to  send  her  home  in  a  taxi,  but 
that  she  refused. 

The  moon  was  shining  in  a  clear  sky,  and  Trenham 
said: 

"  I  wonder  how  many  years  it  will  be  before  we  can 
look  at  the  moon  without  thinking  of  aeroplanes  and  the 
banging  of  guns." 

"  I  had  forgotten  them  already,"  said  Ruth. 

He  understood  that.  He  had  made  her  happy.  Beside 
that  everything  else  was  insignificant.  To  make  one 
human  being  happy  to  the  extent  of  his  or  her  capacity 
seemed  to  him  more  worth  while  than  anything  else  in 
the  world,  and  he  had  had  every  other  desirable  thing. 

"  Good  God ! "  he  said,  as  he  sauntered  home. 
"  What  a  life  she  would  have  had  a  hundred  years  ago, 
and  this  ridiculous  card-indexed  world  can  only  set  her 
to  typing  and  shorthand ! " 


124  PINK  ROSES 


Ruth  was  hundreds  of  miles,  hundreds  of  lives  away 
from  typing  and  shorthand.  Leslie  was  safe !  He  would 
be  given  his  chance  and  prove  himself,  to  say  good-bye 
to  the  Hobdays  for  ever  and  to  pick  up  the  traditions  of 
his  stock  where  they  had  interrupted  it,  and  she  would 
no  longer  suffer  under  the  hatred  of  his  father  as  the 
Hobday  nearest  and  most  offensive  to  him.  Charles  had 
at  last  proved  himself.  The  war  had  brought  salvation. 
It  had  broken  the  stagnation  in  which  all  threatened  to 
rot  away.  She  could  smile  indulgently  at  the  rows  of 
little  houses  now.  Before  very  long  they  would  move 
to  London,  out  of  Suburbia  for  ever,  and  Leslie  should 
go  to  Westminster  School,  where  his  brothers  should 
follow  him  in  making  a  new  Hobday  tradition.  .  .  . 
Perhaps — and  here  her  sanguine  thought  began  to  leap 
into  extravagance — perhaps  her  father  was  even  going 
to  be  famous!  That  would  cure  the  nervous  oppression 
from  which  Leslie  had  suffered,  and  he  would  start  fair 
and  square  without  having  unnecessary  struggles  to  as- 
sert his  quality. 

Of  herself,  for  herself,  Ruth  thought  not  at  all.  For 
one  evening  she  had  been  happy.  That  was  compensa- 
tion enough  for  all  that  she  had  suffered.  She  trusted 
Trenham  absolutely.  That  he  had  remembered  her 
father  was  almost  enough  to  prove  his  sincerity  and 
decency.  That  he  should  at  once  have  recognized  the 
value  of  her  father's  work  and  have  acted  on  it  made 
him  at  once  the  one  person  out  of  the  whole  world  whom 
she  could  call  friend;  and  he  had  asked  her  to  bring 
Leslie!  To  share  the  happiness  she  had  had  with  Leslie 
would  be  an  almost  overwhelming  joy.  She  arrived 
home  tingling  with  the  anticipation  of  it. 

Leslie  opened  the  door  to  her.    He  had  been  working 


ROMANTICISM  125 


all  evening  at  an  essay  on  patriotism  for  a  school  prize, 
and  he  was  tired  and  sullen. 

"  Oh !  Leslie,  Leslie,  do  come  out  and  look  at  the 
moon ! " 

"  I  don't  want  to  see  the  moon.  I'm  sick  of  the  sound 
of  it.  People  talk  of  nothing  else." 

"  Leslie,  don't  be  grumpy.  Everything  is  going  to  be 
all  right.  The  Government  have  bought  father's  idea, 
and  they  are  going  to  give  him  the  use  of  a  laboratory 
and  a  salary." 

"  He  won't  stick  to  it,"  he  growled,  blinking  up  at  the 
moon.  "  You  know  he  won't.  He  likes  sitting  in  a 
chair  in  slippers  and  dressing-gown,  smoking  a  pipe  and 
feeling  ill-used." 

"  Don't  be  bitter,  Leslie.  It  is  recognition  he  has  al- 
ways wanted.  Now  he  has  got  it." 

"People  are  very  generous  with  Government  money; 
there's  nothing  in  that.  I've  been  writing  about  that. 
People  think  the  Government  is  something  different 
from  themselves.  They  can't  see  that  Government 
money  comes  out  of  their  own  pockets." 

"  You  are  bitter,  Leslie.  People  can't  help  them- 
selves. When  I  saw  Mr.  Smart  the  other  day  he  said  he 
was  rather  anxious  about  you  because  you  had  been  read- 
ing Dostoievsky." 

"Oh!" 

"  Well,  it  isn't  good  for  you.  English  people  don't 
get  into  epileptic  rages." 

"  I  wish  to  God  they  did,  then  something  would 
happen." 

"  But  something  has  happened,  Leslie.  Something 
wonderful  has  happened." 

"  It  won't  make  any  difference.    It  won't  alter  Dad,  or 


126  PINK  ROSES 


me,  or  you,  or  Uncle  Henry  sitting  in  his  office.    ..." 

He  was  terrible  when  he  was  in  these  moods.  Ruth 
felt  immensely  sorry  for  him.  She  put  her  arm  round 
him  and  stood  with  him  in  the  moonlight,  under  the 
acacia-tree  which  adorned  their  front  garden,  and  tried 
to  soothe  him. 

"  There  are  good  people  in  the  world,  Leslie.  Sir 
Seymour  wants  me  to  take  you  to  see  him." 

He  was  pleased,  but  could  not  shake  off  his  mood, 
and  he  said: 

"  I  wish  to  God  you  wouldn't  talk  about  me  to 
strangers,  Ruth.  .  .  .  You're  always  doing  it,  and  I 
have  to  live  up  or  down  to  the  nonsense  you  tell  them." 

She  told  him  about  Trenham's  house,  and  at  last  he 
said  grudgingly : 

"  He  must  be  a  decent  old  card." 

"Oh!  he  is.  He  gave  me  his  letter  to  Dad  opened, 
so  that  I  could  read  it.  I've  closed  it  so  that  Dad  can 
have  the  pleasure  of  telling  us,  and  then  I  shall  tell  him 
that  I'm  leaving  the  City  and  going  in  to  Sir  Seymour's 
Ministry.  .  .  .  We're  rich,  Leslie,  we're  rich !  " 

Leslie  scowled  up  at  the  moon.  He  had  been  reading 
The  Brothers  Karamazov  and  wanted  to  be  like  Alyosha, 
except  in  the  moments  when  he  thought  himself  the 
embodiment  of  all  evil,  and  decided  that  he  was  irrev- 
ocably Smeadyrkov. 

Ruth  laughed  at  him. 

"Isn't  it  wonderful?  ...  I  should  just  love  to 
walk  in  and  tell  Uncle  Henry  what  I  thought  of  him." 

"  Leave  that  to  me,"  said  Leslie.  "  I  shall  unbutton 
his  waistcoat,  pull  out  his  shirt,  shave  off  one  of  his 
whiskers,  and  turn  him  loose  in  the  City  with  a  placard 
on  his  back :  '  This  is  what  I  get  for  two  hundred  a  year 


ROMANTICISM  127 


given  to  my  nephews  and  nieces.'  And  on  his  front  I 
shall  have  another  placard :  '  Charity  is  a  boomerang.'  " 

"  Ssh !  "  said  Ruth.    "  He  thought  he  was  being  kind." 

Their  father  had  heard  their  voices,  and  had  come  to 
the  top  of  the  stairs  and  called: 

"Ruth!     Ruth!    Is  that  you?" 

She  went  up  to  him  and  gave  him  Trenham's  letter. 
His  mind  could  not  take  it  in.  His  hand  trembled,  he 
clutched  the  letter  to  his  bosom,  and  laughing  and  cry- 
ing he  said  in  a  quavering  and  silly  voice: 

"  Ruth,  Ruth.  It's  come.  My  fortune  is  made.  Oh ! 
Ruth.  If  only  your  mother  were  alive  she  would  take 
back  some  of  her  words.  .  .  .  Ruth,  you  must  leave 
your  office  at  once.  We  will  pay  for  the  repairs  to  the 
house  and  we  will  move  at  once.  ...  I  never  did  care 
for  Highgate,  though  the  air  is  good.  I  have  a  fancy 
for  the  neighbourhood  of  Baker  Street.  It  is  select  with- 
out being  pretentious  or  genteel.  And,  Ruth  dear,  I 
...  I  must  have  some  new  clothes.  Ah!  Ha!  Ah! 
Ha!  I  always  knew  I  should  show  the  Hobdays  that 
.  .  .  that  .  .  .  Oh!  well  it  doesn't  matter.  .  .  . 
I  wish  we  had  a  bottle  of  port  in  the  house.  .  .  .  Your 
uncle  used  to  send  us  some  port  every  year  until  your 
mother  said  something  about  your  aunt.  It  was  per- 
fectly true,  of  course,  but  most  unfortunate.  .  .  . 
Three  hundred  pounds,  my  dear.  .  .  .  The  idea.  .  .  . 
The  mere  idea  is  worth  three  hundred  pounds  to  the 
Government.  Oh !  I  wish  we  had  a  bottle  of  port  in  the 
house ! " 


SOPHINA 

A  FEW  weeks  later  saw  both  Charles  Hobday  and  his 
daughter  in  the  service  of  their  country,  Charles  with  a 
salary  of  £300  a  year,  Ruth  receiving  £2  175.  6d.  a  week. 
This  was  a  loss  of  five  shillings  a  week  to  her,  but  it  was 
more  than  compensated  for  in  the  gain  of  leaving  the 
City,  which  had  been  for  five  years  the  scene  of  her  cap- 
tivity. That  was  over.  The  fatal  spell  which  had 
descended  upon  her  and  her  family  was  broken.  Her 
father  was  alert,  gay,  sanguine.  In  the  neighbourhood 
of  Baker  Street  he  had  found  the  upper  part  of  a  big 
house,  and  into  this  the  Hobdays  moved.  It  was  an  ugly 
house,  but  it  was  roomy  and  had  character  and  it  was  in 
London,  so  that  a  large  part  of  the  day  was  no  longer 
spent  in  going  to  and  from  work. 

At  the  Ministry  Ruth  was  not  immediately  under 
Trenham,  and  she  rarely  saw  him.  When  they  met  he 
gave  her  a  friendly  nod.  and  occasionally  asked  her  if 
she  liked  her  work.  She  was  with  girls  who  for  the 
most  part  were  working  for  the  first  time,  having  jumped 
at  the  chance  of  escaping  from  home.  The  great  hotel 
in  which  they  were  housed  glowed  with  a  holiday  atmos- 
phere, and  for  a  time  Ruth  was  entirely  happy.  She 
needed  a  rest,  time  in  which  to  recuperate,  to  look 
around  her  and  make  very  sure  that  she  really  had 
escaped  from  the  grinding  monotonous  anxiety.  Her 
companions  thought  her  "  stand-offish,"  but  she  was  only 

its 


SOPHINA  129 

so  absorbed  in  the  release  of  her  feelings  that  very  often 
she  did  not  hear  them  when  they  spoke  to  her.  She 
was  one  of  the  very  few  who  knew  anything  about  office 
organization,  and  she  was  in  consequence  kept  hard  at 
work.  This  also  did  not  increase  her  popularity. 

She  was  given  as  assistant  a  little  Jewish  girl  who  was 
strange  and  exotic  among  all  the  rest  Her  name  was 
Sophina  Lipinsky,  though  everybody  called  her  Sophina 
at  once  because  she  was  extraneous  to  their  atmosphere, 
and  rather  like  a  cat  that  had  strayed  in,  and  as  a  stray 
cat  makes  friends  by  accepting  milk,  so  Sophina  ingrati- 
ated herself  by  taking  tea  at  all  hours  with  whoever  hap- 
pened to  be  making  it  at  the  moment  She  became  at- 
tached to  Ruth,  singled  her  out,  again  like  a  stray  cat, 
as  the  person,  if  any,  to  whom  she  belonged,  and  it  was 
not  long  before  she  confided  her  story.  Ruth  hardly 
listened  at  first,  but  Sophina's  persistence  and  the  events 
of  her  story  stirred  in  Ruth  an  element  in  her  being  that 
had  lain  dormant. 

Sophina  told  her  that  she  came  of  poor  East  End 
parents,  and  in  her  neighbourhood  there  were  several 
young  Jews  who  had  revolted  against  the  poverty  of 
their  surroundings  and  against  the  hard  money-grubbing 
with  which  their  parents  strove  to  escape  from  it,  and 
they  had  discovered  Art  In  the  West  End  there  were 
people  who  had  become  rich  through  Art,  and  they  were 
very  important  Her  friends  then  began  to  paint  pic- 
tures and  write  poems,  and  one  or  two  of  them  man- 
aged to  establish  connections  with  the  artists  in  the  West 
End,  and  with  rich  people  who  cared  for  Art  A  few  of 
them  even  made  a  little  money,  and  among  these  was 
Finberg,  a  Pole  from  Warsaw,  who  was  not  like  the 
others  because  his  people  were  political  refugees  and  had 


1 30  PINK  ROSES 


lived  in  France,  so  that  he  could  read  French  and  knew 
a  little  about  books.  He  was  very  handsome  and  made 
friends  quickly.  When  he  had  made  a  few  pounds  he 
published  a  little  book  of  his  poems  and  sent  them  to  the 
papers  and  to  one  or  two  well-known  writing  men.  The 
reviews  were  favourable,  and  he  judged  it  time  to  break 
,away  from  the  East  End  circle  and  to  go  up  to  the  West 
End  to  make  his  fortune.  He  had  made  love  to  Sophina, 
and  she  insisted  on  going  with  him  because  she  knew  that 
if  he  went  alone  he  would  forget  her.  He  was  full  of 
confidence,  and  also  he  loved  her.  And  together  they 
moved  to  one  room  in  Gray's  Inn  Road.  They  had  more 
excitement  than  money,  but  that  did  not  matter  so  long 
as  they  were  together.  Finberg  was  a  Revolutionary, 
and  did  not  believe  in  marriage.  They  had  a  child  and 
managed  to  keep  it  alive,  but  Finberg  was  worried.  His 
manuscripts  kept  returning  and  he  took  to  going  to  cafes, 
where  artists  and  writers  met,  and  then  the  war  broke 
out  and,  when  everybody  bad  to  go,  Finberg  wouldn't 
because  he  was  a  Revolutionary,  and  because  his  people 
had  had  trouble  in  France,  and  he  lost  a  lot  of  his 
friends.  No  one  knew  how  he  managed  to  keep  out  of 
the  Army,  but  he  did.  .  .  .  Sometimes  he  disappeared 
for  weeks  and  left  her  alone  to  face  it  out.  Then  he 
came  back  and  she  was  happy  again,  but  at  last  he  went 
away  altogether,  and  she  thought  for  a  long  time  that 
he  was  in  the  Army,  until  she  met  him  one  day  in  the 
street,  well-dressed  and  looking  well-fed,  and  he  pre- 
tended to  be  absorbed  in  a  newspaper,  though  she  knew 
perfectly  well  that  he  had  seen  her.  .  .  .  She  did  noth- 
ing, she  could  not  move.  It  was  in  Piccadilly  Circus; 
she  remembered  standing  there  looking  down  at  the  old 
woman  selling  flowers  and  thinking  that  she  would  one 


SOPHINA  131 


day  be  among  them.  .  .  .  Her  people  were  strict  Jews 
and  would  have  nothing  to  do  with  her,  and  she  did  not 
know  where  to  turn,  but  a  lady  who  had  been  kind  to 
both  her  and  Finberg  sent  her  to  learn  shorthand  and 
typing,  and  she  had  found  work  for  her  at  the 
Ministry. 

The  story  offended  and  yet  fascinated  Ruth.  It  had 
in  it  such  a  stink  of  the  Ghetto  and  the  streets  that  she 
was  horrified.  She  liked,  yet  did  not  altogether  trust, 
Sophina,  of  whom  she  felt  that  she  told  her  story  too 
glibly.  It  had  been  told  too  often  to  be  convincing  any 
longer.  It  had  lost  its  authenticity. 

"  Where  do  you  live  now?  "  Ruth  asked  her. 

"  Oh,  I  live  in  some  rooms  near  Mecklenburgh 
Square." 

"And  the  baby?" 

"  Oh !  some  kind  friends  have  taken  care  of  it.  Such 
kind  people.  They  said  children  ought  not  to  be 
brought  up  in  London." 

Ruth  smiled.  A  million  or  more  babies  lived  in  Lon- 
don. How  was  Sophina's  different  that  it  should  be 
removed?  Such  gipsy  carelessness  rather  affronted  her 
when  she  remembered  all  her  own  efforts  to  preserve  her 
brothers  and  sisters.  .  .  .  But  to  Sophina  it  seemed, 
apparently,  the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world  that,  hav- 
ing lost  Finberg,  she  should  also  lose  his  child.  She 
spoke  of  it  as  something  pathetically  romantic  in  the 
past  which  accounted  for  and  justified  herself.  She  was 
lazy  and  apt  to  be  pert,  because  she  was  intelligent  and 
critical,  and  therefore  did  not  take  the  Ministry  alto- 
gether seriously,  and  she  was  so  careless  that  she  would 
have  been  sent  away  had  not  Ruth  intervened  and  prom- 
ised to  teach  her  the  method  necessary  for  office  work. 


i32  PINK  ROSES 


She  did  not  object  to  Sophina  being  flung  out  on  the 
world,  but  she  could  not  bear  the  idea  of  her  sponging, 
as  she  knew  she  would.  .  .  .  She  guessed  that 
Sophina's  baby  had  been  adopted  by  some  woman  hun- 
gry for  a  child,  and  she  knew  that  in  a  difficulty  Sophina, 
without  the  slightest  compunction,  would  resort  to  black- 
mail; and  yet  she  liked  Sophina,  because  she  was  alive, 
with  that  assertive  slippery  vitality  peculiar  to  the  Jews. 
Most  of  the  other  girls  were  as  alike  each  other  as  the 
blouses  they  bought  in  Oxford  Street  or  the  shoes  they 
purchased  at  one  or  other  of  the  multiple  shops.  They 
read,  talked,  laughed,  flirted,  spent  money  in  order  to 
avoid  thinking,  but  Sophina  could  and  did  think,  and 
she  was  calculatingly  contemptuous.  Often  Ruth  felt 
that  Sophina  knew  more  about  her  than  she  did  herself, 
and  she  was  a  little  afraid  of  her. 

One  thing  Sophina  knew  which  Ruth  never  suspected, 
and  this  was  that  she  had  a  friend  in  high  places  who 
saw  to  it  that  her  promotion  was  rapid.  Therefore 
Sophina  clung  to  Ruth,  and  was  promoted  with  her.  .  .  . 
It  was  not  long  before  Ruth,  with  Sophina  attached, 
was  working  in  a  room  with  two  other  girls  who  were 
too  busy  and  too  intent  on  .their  advancement  to  pay 
much  attention  to  the  new-comers.  Ruth  received  her 
instructions  direct  from  one  of  Sir  Seymour's  secre- 
taries, and  her  work  and  that  of  the  others  did  not 
overlap. 

This  secretary  was  a  young  gentleman  of  culture  who 
took  a  violent  interest  in  Sophina  as  soon  as  he  heard 
she  was  a  Russian,  for  he  believed  Russian  literature  to 
be  superior  to  all  others,  and  he  liked  to  talk  about  it. 
More  than  once  he  protested  that  Russian  defeats  did 
not  matter  because,  after  all,  Dostoievsky  and  Tolstoi 


SOPHINA  133 

had  conquered  Europe.  .  .  .  Now  Sophina  could  not 
speak  a  word  of  Russian,  but  she  concealed  that  fact, 
and  soon  the  secretary  began  to  treat  her  as  the  priestess 
of  his  oracle,  and  she  played  the  role  admirably.  .  .  . 
He  asked  her  out  to  dinner  and,  though  he  knew  that 
Russians  are  unconventional,  he  could  not  un-English 
himself  to  take  her  out  alone,  and  also  invited  Ruth,  of 
whom  he  was  just  a  little  afraid.  She  saw  that  Sophina 
wanted  her  to  go,  and  good-naturedly  accepted.  To 
make  a  parti  carre  the  young  gentleman,  Carline,  asked 
his  friend  and  patron,  Mr.  Cherryman,  who  happened 
not  to  be  dining  out  that  evening,  to  meet  his  marvellous 
Russian. 

They  were  at  a  polite  restaurant  in  a  cellar  just  off 
Regent  Street.  It  was  Ruth's  first  excursion  into  West 
End  life,  but  to  Sophina,  of  course,  it  was  as  familiar  as 
water  to  a  duck.  She  had  a  special  manner,  a  hauteur, 
an  air  of  being  able  to  spend  unlimited  money,  a  con- 
temptuous tolerance  of  this  particular  restaurant  as  not 
being  quite  as  good  as  those  which  it  was  her  habit  to 
frequent.  She  was  not  singular  in  this.  The  same  atti- 
tude was  in  both  Carline  and  Cherryman,  whose  presence 
in  the  eyes  of  the  head  waiter  made  the  party  worthy  of 
honour,  and  to  be  admitted  to  the  secrets  of  the  kitchen 
and  the  cellar.  .  .  .  The  conversation  was  all  of  things 
Russian — Russian  music,  ballet,  novels,  philosophy,  re- 
ligion, Ikons,  Byzantine  art,  folk-songs,  caviare,  the 
okhrana,  Azev,  Bourtzev,  Solovyov  and  many  other  evs 
and  ovs,  and  Sophina  kept  the  ball  rolling  marvellously. 
There  was  nothing  Russian  that  she  did  not  know,  and 
she  gave  a  glowing  description  of  life  in  Russia,  in 
happy  oblivion  that  her  story  gave  the  lie  to  that  which 
she  had  told  to  Ruth. 


PINK  ROSES 


"  Ah ! "  said  Cherryman,  after  the  enthusiasm  for 
Russia  had  frothed  and  fumed  until  dinner  was  nearly 
over.  "  That  was  true  enough  before  the  war,  but  we 
have  altered  all  that.  England  has  become  a  nest  of 
singing  birds,  as  she  was  in  the  days  of  Elizabeth." 
And  he  produced  a  copy  of  Hardman's  poems,  and  with 
a  bow  presented  it  to  Ruth  with  an  inscription. 

She  smiled  and  thanked  him,  and  opened  the  book. 
It  was  dedicated  "  To  my  friends  James  Peto  and  Trevor 
Mathew."  .  .  .  She  attached  no  importance  to  the 
names,  but  the  book  was  somehow  friendly.  It  was  a 
relief  after  Carline's  limpid  enthusiasm  and  Sophina's 
unblushing  lies,  and  she  began  to  like  Cherryman  a  little 
more.  He  had  worried  and  annoyed  her  with  his  pester- 
ing questions,  with  which  he  sought  to  establish  her  so- 
cial connections,  though  he  was  perfectly  satisfied  as  soon 
as  he  had  pinned  her  down  to  kinship  with  the  firm  of 
Hobday,  Treves  and  Treves.  ...  A  niece  of  Henry 
Hobday!  Ah!  Fine  old  man.  Solicitor  of  the  old 
school.  Great  figure  at  the  Law  Society:  ought  to  have 
been  knighted,  but  above  that  sort  of  thing.  .  .  . 

"  A  bit  of  a  change  for  you  doing  your  bit  in  a  Min- 
istry, eh,  Miss  Hobday?" 

Ruth  admitted  smilingly  that  it  was  a  great  change. 

Over  coffee  Cherryman  read  her  some  of  Hardman's 
poems  in  a  peculiar  little  chanting  voice  so  that  she  could 
hardly  hear  a  word  and  had  to  fall  back  on  watching  him 
lash  himself  into  an  ecstasy,  so  that  one  big  vein  stood 
out  on  his  round,  shiny  forehead,  and  his  eyelids  became 
greasy  with  emotion.  He  closed  the  book  reverently  and 
said  in  a  husky  whisper: 

"  He  died  at  Suvla  Bay.  .  .  .  The  most  charming 
boy.  No  one  could  resist  him.  No  one  did  resist  him. 


SOPHINA  135 


.  .  .  He  lived  with  these  two  friends  of  his  and  every 
one  adored  them.  I  assure  you,  Miss  Hobday — it  may 
sound  ridiculous  to  you — but  they  were  like  three  lovely 
debutantes  in  the  old  days.  You  know,  they  went  every- 
where; everybody  talked  about  them;  artists  drew  their 
portraits.  And  they  were  so  intellectual,  I  assure  you. 
They  brought  the  very  flower  of  the  atmosphere  of  Cam- 
bridge into  London.  ...  At  the  opera,  at  the  Russian 
ballet — ah !  the  Russian  ballet ! — at  the  Savoy,  at  Down- 
ing Street,  wherever  you  went,  they  were  there.  And 
unspoiled!  Absolutely  unspoiled!  ...  It  was  I  who 
discovered  that  Hardman  was  a  poet.  He  was  indiffer- 
ent about  it  at  first,  but  when  a  few  of  his  verses  had 
been  printed  he  gathered  confidence,  and  the  war — the 
war  gave  him  his  inspiration.  That  is  our  answer  to 
Carline's  Russians,  and  we  can  look  Europe  in  the 
face!" 

After  this  eloquence  Mr.  Cherryman  ordered  a  liqueur 
and  suggested  that  the  party  should  adjourn  to  his  rooms 
as  the  cafes  had  become  intolerable  since  the  war. 

"Do  you  know  a  poet  called  Finberg?"  asked 
Sophina,  glancing  savagely  across  at  Mr.  Cherryman. 

"  Finberg.  .  .  .  Oh,  yes."  Mr.  Cherryman  gulped 
uneasily  and  said  in  a  quavery  tone :  "  He  is — he  is — 
against  the  war." 

"  He  isn't  against  anything,"  sneered  Sophina.  "  He 
is  for  Finberg,  and  nothing  else.  Says  he's  a  Russian, 
but  he's  an  East  End  Jew." 

She  had  drunk  a  good  deal  of  wine,  and  she  was 
annoyed  with  Mr.  Cherryman  for  diverting  attention 
from  herself. 

"  I  used  to  know  him,"  she  continued.  "  Is  he  any 
good  as  a  poet  ?  " 


I36  PINK  ROSES 


"  I — er — I  had  hopes  of  him  before  the  war,"  said 
Mr.  Cherryman,  "  but  that  has  destroyed  so  many  of  our 
hopes." 

Sophina  gave  a  snarl  of  satisfaction.  She  understood 
that  Finberg  was  not  really  any  good,  that  he  had  spoiled 
his  chance  and  that  he  had  left  her  for  a  shadowy  ambi- 
tion. She  could  not  resist  giving  a  triumphant  cruel 
laugh,  and  then  she  returned  to  her  new  game  of  charm- 
ing Carline,  who  had  begun  to  bask  in  the  warmth  of 
her  Russian  temperament. 

The  party  had  become  uncongenial  to  Ruth,  and  she 
took  refuge  in  the  book  Mr.  Cherryman  had  given  her. 
On  the  whole  she  disliked  him  as  she  disliked  the  head 
waiter,  because  of  a  certain  cadging  familiarity  in  his 
manner.  Of  the  two,  though  he  was  the  more  foolish, 
she  preferred  Carline.  As  for  Sophina,  she  wanted  to 
shake  her  for  being  so  unscrupulous,  although  she  could 
not  help  being  amused  by  the  depth  of  Carline's  infatua- 
tion when  she  heard  him  almost  whispering  to  her  that 
he  could  not  call  her  Miss  Lipinsky,  but  wished  to  do  as 
they  did  in  Russia  and  to  call  her  by  her  name  and  her 
father's  name — Sophina  Solomonovna  Finotchka.  .  .  . 
And  Sophina  rose  to  it  and  actually  began  to  talk  with 
a  slight  foreign  accent,  which  she  could  easily  achieve  by 
exaggerating  her  natural  and  racial  guttural  tones. 
.  .  .  Carline  had  never  spent  such  a  delightful  evening. 
He  felt  that  he  was  living  in  a  Russian  novel.  If  only 
— ah!  if  only  he  could  do  something  unexpected,  but 
cudgel  his  brains  as  he  might  he  could  think  of  nothing, 
and  much  as  he  might  crave  a  Russian  intimacy  with 
Sophina  Solomonovna  he  could  not  help  being  English 
and  polite  to  her,  flattered,  moved  and  shaken  though  he 
was  by  her  bold  black  eyes.  He  often  looked  uneasily 


SOPHINA  137 

across  at  Ruth,  thinking :  "  Ah !  these  English  women ! 
how  cold  they  are!  How  indifferent!  How  sluggish! 
How  without  depth  and  ability  to  see  beyond  their 
domestic  purposes !  "  And  he,  too,  under  Sophina's  in- 
fluence began  to  think,  though  not  to  speak,  with  a  for- 
eign accent,  and  he  included  in  his  already  excessive 
gestures  a  hearty  Russian  shrug. 

The  evening  ended  as  Cherryman  desired,  at  his  rooms 
in  the  Temple.  Ruth  was  reluctant  to  go,  but  Sophina 
wished  to  complete  the  conquest  of  Carline,  and  Cherry- 
man was  anxious  to  show  his  pictures  and  his  first  edi- 
tions and  his  trophies  from  the  battlefields — a  shell,  a 
Pickelhaube,  a  piece  of  a  German  aeroplane,  a  charred 
piece  of  wood  which  he  said  came  from  the  first  Zeppelin 
brought  down  in  flames.  .  .  .  The  memory  of  that 
made  Ruth  go  pale.  She  had  seen  the  great  mass  of 
flame  descending  from  the  sky  and  had  thought  with 
horror  of  the  men  destroyed  in  it,  though  an  even  deeper 
horror  that  pierced  to  the  very  bottom  of  her  soul  came 
with  the  terrible  shout  of  triumph  that  arose  from  Lon- 
don. .  .  .  She  looked  aghast  at  Cherryman  as  he 
caressed  his  trophy  in  his  fat  hands. 

"  I  motored  out  with  Lady  Manton,"  he  said.  "  She 
rang  me  up." 

And  he  went  prattling  on  in  his  bland  innocence,  which 
made  it  impossible  for  Ruth  to  stay.  She  could  not. 
The  memory  of  that  terrible  shout  was  too  much  for  her. 
At  the  time  it  had  made  her  hide  herself  away  and  weep 
in  the  dark,  but  she  had  not  been  able  to  understand, 
and  now  in  a  dim  way  her  faculties  had  begun  to  work 
upon  her  experiences,  to  thread  them  together  and 
roughly  to  sift  and  sort  out  those  that  were  not  yet 
shapely  enough  to  be  threaded.  .  .  .  Now  that  her 


138  PINK  ROSES 


troubles  were  settled,  her  energy  was  turned  in  upon  her- 
self, and  there  she  found  much  that  baffled,  much  that 
troubled  and  disconcerted  her,  because  it  was  so  unex- 
pected. .  .  .  Sophina  was  putting  the  finishing  touches 
to  her  flirtation  with  Carline;  Cherryman  had  not  the 
least  idea  of  the  commotion  in  Ruth,  and  he  was  annoyed 
when  she  left  him  abruptly,  walked  up  to  Sophina  and 
said: 

"  Sophina,  I  really  must  ask  you  to  go  now.  .  .  . 
We  ought  not  to  have  come.  I  blame  myself." 

"  Oh,  I  say,  Miss  Hobday!  "  said  Carline.  "  I've  had 
such  a  splendid  time." 

Sophina  knew  that  it  would  not  do  to  offend  Ruth, 
and  she  was  the  only  one  to  recognize  that  Ruth  was 
upset.  She  could  not  imagine  about  what,  and  thought 
that  perhaps  she  had  given  offence  with  her  extrava- 
gance, which  had  carried  her  so  far  as  she  cared  to  go 
- — for  the  present. 

"  It  is  pretty  late !  "  she  said. 

"  In  Russia,"  exclaimed  Carline,  "  there  isn't  such  a 
word!" 

"  There  used  not  to  be  such  a  word  in  a  Government 
Office,"  said  Cherryman.  "  But  all  that  is  changing. 
...  It  has  been  a  delightful  evening.  .  .  .  Delight- 
ful! Don't  forget  your  book,  Miss  Hobday.  .  .  . 
How  charming  this  new  freedom  is.  ...  One  felt  it 
coming  before  the  war,  and  then  it  looked  as  though  it 
had  been  snuffed  out.  But  now  it  looks  as  though  the 
right  people  would  be  able  to  do  as  they  like." 

Ruth  felt  very  decidedly  that  Cherryman  and  Carline 
were  the  wrong  people  for  her,  though  in  some  odd  way 
Sophina  was  right.  Perhaps  that  was  only  because 
Sophina  had  adopted  her. 


SOPHINA  139 

Cherryman  was  still  talking: 

"  It  is  delightful,  the  new  social  atmosphere  in  the 
Ministries.  We  are  all  such  friends,  and  we  have  the 
satisfaction  of  easily  playing  our  part  in  something 
big." 

The  "  easily "  was  so  admirably  inappropriate  that 
Ruth  forgave  him.  There  was  no  great  harm  in  him. 
He  believed  that  Life  was  pleasant.  For  him  the  sun 
shone  all  day  long.  It  rose  at  precisely  the  same  hour 
every  morning,  suffused  the  world  with  a  delicate  rose- 
pink,  and  set  at  the  same  hour  every  evening.  He  saw 
everything  through  this  pink  haze,  and  Ruth,  on  the 
whole,  found  him  soothing.  He  was  reluctant  to  let  her 
go.  The  nearest  approach  to  grief  he  had  ever  felt  was 
at  the  break-up  of  a  charming  party,  and  for  him  it  was 
clear  that  the  war  had  become  a  charming  party,  and  he 
looked  forward  to  its  breaking  up  with  dread  because 
— who  knows? — he  might  find  himself  alone. 

Ruth  was  astonished  at  the  new  thoughts  stirring  in 
her  mind  and  at  her  new  power  of  appreciating  persons. 
It  had  begun  after  her  dinner  with  Trenham,  which  re- 
mained for  her  a  touchstone,  the  one  outstanding  event 
of  her  life.  It  had  made  her  determined  not  to  drift, 
had  aroused  her  will  only  to  force  on  her  attention  the 
fact  that  in  war-time  a  will  was  most  unusual  and  there- 
fore to  be  disapproved.  Sophina,  Carline,  and  Cherry- 
man were  perfect  for  war-time:  all  will-less  drifters  with 
just  enough  energy  to  steer  them  out  of  danger.  To  be 
irritated  by  them  was  to  take  them  too  seriously,  but  she 
could  not  help  contrasting  Cherryman's  room  with  Tren- 
ham's  house  in  North  Street.  The  one  was  a  litter  of 
objects  collected  for  the  sake  of  collecting,  the  other  was 
arranged  to  satisfy  a  taste. 


I4o  PINK  ROSES 


"  I  hope  you  will  come  again,  Miss  Hobday,"  said 
Cherryman. 

She  thought  she  would  not,  but  did  not  say  so. 

"  Come,  Sophina." 

Sophina  lagged  in  subtly  disturbing  conversation  with 
Carline. 

"  You  Russians  make  us  look  like  children." 

And  he  asked  her  for  her  address  and  wrote  it 
down. 

They  were  escorted  to  the  great  gate  of  the  Temple, 
and  as  the  door  closed  behind  them  Sophina  said : 

"I  did  have  him  on,  didn't  I?  He  asked  me  if  I 
would  teach  him  Russian,  and  I  said  I  would.  .  .  . 
My  mother  remembers  a  little  Polish,  but  that's  all. 
What  shall  I  do?" 

"Tell  him  the  truth,  if  you've  any  regard  for  him," 
said  Ruth.  "  I  think  he  is  at  heart  a  nice,  simple  fellow." 

"  I  know  their  sort,"  said  Sophina  savagely.  "  Fin- 
berg  used  to  get  money  out  of  them." 

Ruth  was  overcome  with  disgust.  She  could  not  bear 
cynicism,  and  there  were  times  when  Sophina  seemed  to 
be  made  of  it. 

Their  ways  parted.  Ruth  offered  to  see  Sophina 
home,  but  the  Jewess  laughed. 

"You  see  me  home?  Why,  I'm  as  safe  as  you  are. 
Any  one  would  be  afraid  to  speak  to  you,  but  they'd 
know  they'd  get  as  good  as  they  gave  from  me.  .  .  . 
'Night." 

She  nodded  and  walked  off  briskly.  She  bore  her 
troubles  with  a  flaunting  lightness  which  often  distressed 
Ruth  more  than  her  friend's  misfortunes  themselves. 
Sophina  was  the  first  girl  friend  she  had  had  since  she 
left  school,  and  it  was  through  her  that  her  emotions, 


SOPfflNA  141 

nipped  and  starved,  began  painfully  to  creep  into  action 
once  more. 

The  night  was  fine.  She  decided  to  walk  home.  The 
early  deserted  streets  consoled  her,  for  they  were  mys- 
terious and  beautiful.  The  night  wind  blew  through 
them  to  freshen  them,  and  with  its  coolness  on  her  face 
Ruth  was  able  to  brush  aside  the  evening's  distasteful 
impressions  and  achingly  to  dream  of  all  that  she  had 
missed — home-life,  the  country,  the  sea  and  yellow 
sands,  leisure  to  enjoy  the  song  of  the  heart  by  day,  the 
mystery  of  the  stars  by  night,  and  the  more  mysterious 
stars  that  shone  upon  the  sky  of  the  inner  world.  .  .  . 
Life  was  altogether  another  thing  by  night.  She  had 
always  been  too  driven  to  know  that.  The  day's  toil, 
the  day's  pleasures  were  all  to  fill  the  night  with  dreams. 
.  .  .  And  she  was  alone,  so  terribly  alone.  Her  father, 
her  brothers  and  sisters  relied  on  her,  but  none  of  them 
knew  her  as  she  wished  now  to  reveal  herself — nothing 
very  wonderful,  nothing  remarkable,  but  just  a  human 
being  aching  for  contact  with  another.  .  .  .  The  game 
of  flirtation,  at  which  Sophina  had  proved  herself  so 
expert,  was  altogether  foreign  to  her,  an  art  that  she 
had  neither  desired  nor  acquired.  Her  calm  grey  eyes 
looked  direct  at  everything  they  saw.  They  needed  no 
artful  movement  to  attract  any  gaze  to  them,  but  saw 
clearly  what  they  wished  to  see  and  discarded  what  was 
displeasing  to  them. 


XI 
LESLIE 

THOUGH  Trenham  took  no  further  notice  of  her  at  the 
Ministry  than  to  give  her  a  friendly  nod,  he  had  not  for- 
gotten his  promise.  He  visited  her  father  at  his  labora- 
tory and  complimented  him  on  his  work,  and  having  so 
far  ingratiated  himself  he  wrote  and  asked  Ruth  to  bring 
her  brother  to  lunch  with  him  one  Sunday  at  his  house. 
.  .  .  Leslie  was  shy  and  at  first  refused  to  go,  but  Ruth 
told  him  he  could  not  be  so  rude  to  Sir  Seymour,  who 
had  been  so  good  to  them  all. 

"  I  hate  being  helped,"  said  Leslie. 

"  It  wasn't  a  matter  of  helping,"  protested  Ruth.  "  It 
was  simply  a  matter  of  going  to  the  one  man  who  was 
honest  enough  to  admit  father's  value." 

"What  about  all  the  others?"  asked  Leslie. 

"  Oh,  don't  be  so  mulish !  You  will  like  Sir  Seymour 
immensely.  I  should  think  he  would  be  a  hero  to  any 
boy.  .  .  .  He  is  wonderful  in  the  Ministry.  You  can 
feel  him  there  all  the  time.  I  always  know  when  he  is 
out.  You  are  a  very  lucky  boy  to  have  the  chance  of 
meeting  such  a  man." 

Leslie  saw  that  she  was  very  eager  for  him  to  go,  and 
to  oblige  he  swallowed  his  objections  and  his  shyness, 
brushed  his  hair,  cleaned  his  teeth,  and  actually  wore 
gloves.  .  .  .  Ruth  wore  a  grey  frock,  very  simple,  and 
remembering  her  evening  she  pinned  one  pink  rose  in 
her  bosom.  It  was  done  without  coquetry,  merely  out  of 

142 


LESLIE  143 

homage  to  the  keen  pleasure  she  had  had.  ...  It  did 
not  escape  Trenham's  eyes  as  she  and  Leslie  were  shown 
into  his  little  study  where  he  had  spent  the  morning 
reading. 

He  held  Ruth's  hand  just  a  shade  too  long  for  Leslie, 
who  thrust  out  his  gloved  paw  brusquely,  but  relented  at 
once  as  the  great  man  gave  him  a  friendly  school-boyish 
grin,  and  further  took  no  especial  notice  of  him,  listened 
respectfully  when  he  talked,  but  never  tried  to  draw  him, 
and  did  not  even  ask  him  what  he  was  going  to  be  when 
he  was  a  man.  Leslie  thawed  and  sat  enjoying  the 
amazingly  new  Ruth,  who  revealed  herself  in  easy  desul- 
tory conversation.  Ordinarily  her  speech  was  a  little 
jerky,  and  she  usually  talked  as  though  she  were  thinking 
of  something  else,  but  her  words  flowed  from  her  and 
sentences  were  coined  in  her  mind  before  they  left  her 
lips.  She  and  Trenham  had  great  fun  at  the  expense  of 
Carline  and  the  wonderful  Russian  girl  he  had  discov- 
ered in  the  Ministry. 

"  What  nonsense  it  all  is,"  said  Sir  Seymour.  "  This 
excitement  about  the  Russians.  It  simply  means  that 
our  people  haven't  read  our  own  eighteenth-century 
literature.  The  Russians  have  barbarized  that." 

Ruth  thought :  "  This  will  be  very  good  for  Leslie." 

"  It  reached  the  Russians  through  Dickens,"  continued 
their  host.  "  And  perhaps  after  all  they  will  remind  us 
of  what  we  have  forgotten.  After  the  war  we  shall  have 
to  go  back  in  literature  and  possibly  in  everything  else 
to  where  we  left  off  in  the  eighteenth  century.  .  .  . 
I'm  glad  to  find  time  to  read.  There  is  no  other  escape 
at  present." 

Leslie  was  busy  with  the  food,  and  Trenham  in 
silence  admired  Ruth.  She  was  so  exactly  right  sitting 


144  PINK  ROSES 


there,  as  exactly  wrong  in  the  Ministry.  ...  If  he 
were  a  young  man  she  would  be  the  wife  he  would 
choose,  strong,  supple,  steady,  and  quick  to  understand, 
one  who  could  share  everything  and  would  scorn  to  be 
content  with  comfort  as  the  good  wife's  just  and  due. 
That  brought  him  to  an  unwelcome  comparison,  and  he 
said: 

"  The  Russians  I  dislike  because  they  do  not  know 
how  to  live.  They  tear  themselves  to  shreds  in  attempt- 
ing to  expose  their  disabilities." 

"  And  the  English." 

"  Oh !  we  are  not  decadent  yet.  We  have  stopped 
thinking,  that  is  all.  It  has  preserved  us  in  the  past, 
and  will  do  so  again,  because  we  can  stop  thinking  indefi- 
nitely until  it  becomes  safe  again." 

That  tickled  Leslie,  for  it  reminded  him  of  a  master 
at  school  with  whom  he  had  conducted  a  feud  over  three 
terms. 

"What's  the  joke?"  asked  Trenham,  a  little  be- 
wildered. 

Leslie  blushed  to  the  roots  of  his  hair,  and  he  said: 

"Nothing!    Nothing!" 

Trenham  looked  affectionately  at  the  boy.  He  had 
Ruth's  eyes,  a  good  head,  a  rather  absurd  nose  that  had 
not  yet  decided  on  the  shape  it  was  going  to  take,  and 
a  very  sensitive,  touchingly  young  mouth.  That  again 
was  like  Ruth's,  and  Trenham  looked  from  her  brother 
to  her  and  he  decided  that  he  must  not  see  her  again; 
certainly  not  alone:  she  was  too  like  the  lady  of  his 
dreams. 

After  lunch  they  walked  in  St.  James's  Park,  where 
Trenham  resented  the  temporary  buildings  which  had 
been  erected  on  the  drained  lake. 


LESLIE  145 

"  I  suppose  some  people  get  used  to  these  things.  I 
don't.  Being  a  provincial  I  love  my  London  and  know 
it  well.  It  offends  me  to  see  it  given  over  to  temporary 
purposes,  and  all  this  offends  me  too  as  being  overdone. 
.  .  .  And  St.  James's  Park  and  the  Mall.  But  nothing 
is  sacred  nowadays.  Some  one  wants  to  make  money, 
and  memories  must  be  smashed.  Memory  is  life.  .  .  . 
I  think  I  should  have  been  with  Fox  during  the  Napo- 
leonic War.  .  .  .  We  need  a  Fox  now.  Do  you  feel 
cut  out  for  it,  Leslie?" 

"  Me  ?  .  .  .  Well,  I'm  always  on  the  unpopular  side 
at  school.  All  the  boys  are  what  their  fathers  are,  but 


Trenham's  eyes  twinkled.  He  knew  as  Leslie  did  that 
Charles  Hobday  was  nothing.  Ruth  did  not  know,  and 
he  was  glad  of  that  bond  between  the  boy  and  himself. 

Out  of  sight  of  the  temporary  buildings  there  were 
still  one  or  two  corners  of  the  Park  that  had  retained 
their  charm.  To  stand  and  gaze  from  under  the  green 
trees  at  the  old  houses  in  Queen  Anne's  Gate  was  to  feel 
that  life  here  had  been  lived  undisturbed  for  a  very  long 
time,  and  that  nothing  could  disturb  it  for  it  had  been 
evolved,  created  and  had  attained  immortality.  It  was 
as  sweet  and  clear  as  a  dream,  and  whirling  round  it, 
menacing  it,  but  finding  it  unattainable,  was  life  still  in 
chaos,  in  process  of  evolution,  rebellious  because  it  must 
take  shape  according  to  the  dream  and  not  according  to 
its  crude  desire. 

Looking  affectionately  at  Leslie,  Trenham  thought 
with  relief  that  he  was  young  enough  with  luck  to 
escape  the  war.  He  would  not  be  drawn  into  it;  it  would 
make  no  deep  impression  on  him  and  he  would  be  able 
to  slip  eagerly  into  the  life  cleared  and  freshened  by  it. 


i46  PINK  ROSES 


"  When  I  was  young,"  he  said,  "  I  used  to  come  and 
look  at  those  houses,  and  I  made  up  my  mind  that  I 
would  live  in  one  of  them.  North  Street  is  not  a  bad 
shot  at  a  fulfilled  ambition." 

And  Leslie  looked  at  the  houses  in  Queen  Anne's 
Gate  and  made  up  his  mind  that  he  would  live  in  one  of 
them  some  day  with  a  valet  and  a  spanking  cook,  and  a 
little  panelled  study  full  of  books.  He  would  live  alone, 
and  his  brothers  and  sisters  should  marry  to  supply  him 
with  nephews  and  nieces  to  whom  he  would  be  as  jolly 
as  Trenham  had  been  to  Ruth  and  himself. 

"  I'm  jolly  glad  I  brought  my  gloves,"  thought  he. 

"  That's  a  good  boy,"  said  Trenham  in  a  low  voice. 
"  We  must  steer  him  through." 

She  raised  her  eyes  in  a  slow,  happy  smile.  That  he 
said  "  we "  was  the  crown  of  her  enjoyment  of  that 
day.  To  share  hopes  for  Leslie  brought  to  light  the 
many  sympathies  they  had  in  common. 

"  Oh,  thank  you,"  she  murmured,  and  Trenham  said : 

"  We  must  talk  it  over." 

A  squad  of  soldiers  came  swinging  along  Birdcage 
Walk  from  the  barracks.  They  were  raw  troops  in  the 
stage  of  regarding  themselves  rather  uneasily  as  a  joke, 
and  they  were  still  too  self-conscious  to  have  learned  to 
march.  Ruth  could  not  bear  to  look  at  them,  and  turned 
away,  but  Leslie  stood  staring  wistfully  at  them.  To 
him  they  represented  something  impenetrable,  that 
sooner  or  later  he  would  have  to  face,  and  he  gazed  at 
them  fascinated  until  they  had  passed  out  of  sight. 

"  One  doesn't  notice  that  any  more,"  said  Trenham. 

"  I  do,"  she  replied,  and  he  knew  that  she  was  think- 
ing of  her  brother. 

As  they  walked  slowly  back  she  said: 


LESLIE  147 

"  I  have  been  reading  Hardman's  poems.  They  may 
have  been  true  once,  but  I  don't  think  they  are  true  any 
longer.  .  .  .  How  can  that  be?  Isn't  truth  always  the 
same?" 

"  Not  a  personal  truth.  .  .  .  What  he  wrote  may 
have  been  true  for  millions  when  he  wrote,  but  that 
doesn't  make  it  true  for  all  time." 

"  I  gave  the  book  to  Leslie.  He  simply  couldn't  read 
it.  Could  you,  Leslie?" 

"  No." 

"  We  have  travelled  far  since  Hardman.  The 
youngsters  aren't  expected  to  have  any  feelings  about  it 
now.  They  simply  have  to  go.  School  is  finished  and 
they  go.  ...  Delightfully  easy  for  their  parents, 
isn't  it?" 

"Don't!"  said  Ruth.     "Don't!" 

It  was  as  though  the  marching  soldiers  had  trampled 
her  happiness  underfoot,  and  she  was  anxious  to  escape. 
Therefore  she  refused  Trenham's  pressing  invitation 
that  they  should  return  to  tea. 

In  Whitehall,  as  they  were  walking  towards  the  sta- 
tion, she  became  aware  of  some  one  desiring  to  attract 
her  attention,  and  looking  up  she  saw  Mr.  Cherryman, 
who,  meeting  her  with  Sir  Seymour,  was  determined  not 
to  pass  unnoticed.  With  him  was  a  young  man  whom 
she  felt  vaguely  she  had  seen  before. 

It  was  Trevor  Mathew,  but  he  hardly  noticed  her,  so 
irritated  was  he  with  his  companion's  persistence.  So 
strong  was  the  impression  of  having  seen  him  before 
that  involuntarily  she  turned  and  looked  after  him  and 
Trenham,  roused  to  jealousy,  turned  also.  Mr.  Cherry- 
man raised  his  hat  a  good  eighteen  inches  from  his  head 
and  bowed  as  though  he  were  hinged  in  the  middle. 


i48  PINK  ROSES 


Leslie  could  not  keep  in  a  guffaw.  He  was  a  solemn 
boy,  not  often  stirred  to  laughter,  and  when  it  happened 
to  him  he  was  overcome  and  had  to  fling  himself  into 
contortions. 

"  Leslie !    Leslie !  "  cried  Ruth. 

"  The  boy's  quite  right,"  said  Trenham.  "  It  was 
funny,  very  funny.  They  are  funny,  these  buffoons  of 
London." 

"  It  was  he  who  gave  me  Hardman's  poems,"  said 
Ruth,  her  eyes  twinkling  as  she  recovered  from  her  an- 
noyance. 

"  That  makes  it  all  the  funnier,"  replied  Trenham. 

"  Good-bye,  sir,"  said  Leslie  as  they  parted,  and  with 
stiff  formality  he  added,  "  Thank  you  for  a  very  pleasant 
afternoon." 

"  Thank  you,  sir,"  answered  Trenham  with  a  grin. 

In  the  train  Leslie's  tongue  was  loosened: 

"  I  think  he's  a  topping  man.  He  likes  you,  Ruth. 
That's  why  I  like  him.  He  makes  no  bones  about  it. 
A  swell  like  that  might  easily  put  on  side,  but  he 
doesn't  a  bit.  And  he  feels  things,  too.  ...  I  do 
hope  he'll  ask  us  again.  By  Jove,  I'd  work  for  a  man 
like  that.  I'd  know  he  wouldn't  say  anything  was  good 
unless  it  was  jolly  good.  .  .  .  Does  he  live  all  alone? 
...  I  shall  live  like  that  ..." 

Leslie  suddenly  knit  his  brows  as  he  thought  of  his 
father  and  Trenham  having  said  he  was  good.  .  .  . 
Perhaps  he  was.  .  .  .  But  no,  he  couldn't  be.  Leslie 
knew  his  father  too  minutely. 

"  I  say,  Ruth,"  he  said  suddenly,  "  did  Trenham  know 
father  long  ago,  or  was  it  mother?" 

"  He  worked  with  father  a  long  time  ago,  before  we 
were  born." 


LESLIE  149 

Leslie  whistled. 

"  I  shouldn't  have  thought  he  was  as  old  as  that." 

"  He  is  younger  than  father,"  said  Ruth. 

It  was  much  pleasanter  to  go  back  to  the  upper  part 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  Baker  Street  than  to  the  little 
house  at  Highgate,  which  had  been  exile.  This  was 
London.  There  was  no  abrupt  change  of  atmosphere,  no 
dwindling  into  a  life  that  merely  looked  towards  Lon- 
don. The  Hobday  furniture  was  almost  at  home  in  the 
big  rooms,  while  there  was  space  enough  for  the  Paget- 
Sutton  portraits  to  get  away  from  it.  They  need  no 
longer  look  down  in  such  disdain,  and  indeed  they 
seemed  to  have  become  once  more  their  own  wicked 
selves.  It  was  Charles  who  called  them  wicked,  a  taunt 
he  had  invented  to  fling  at  his  wife  when  she  was  scorn- 
ful of  the  Hobdays. 

Over  tea  Leslie  chattered  of  his  lunch  with  the  great 
man  who  had  become  his  hero,  but  Ruth  complained  of 
a  headache  and  went  up  to  her  little  room  at  the  top  of 
the  house,  from  which  over  the  roofs  she  could  see  the 
tree-tops  of  Regent's  Park. 

Out  of  that  happiness  remained  two  figures,  Trenham 
and  the  young  man  whom  she  had  met  with  Mr. 
Cherryman,  and  she  was  angry  with  herself  because  they 
stood  between  her  and  the  new  life  that  was  slowly  un- 
folding before  her.  Except  for  her  fears  for  Leslie  the 
din  and  bustle  of  the  war  were  far  behind  her.  She  had 
accepted  her  place  in  its  machinery,  and,  like  every  one 
else,  had  forgotten  about  it  except  as  an  increasing 
pressure  which  had  become  a  part  of  her  habitual  exist- 
ence. She  had  never  sought  relief  in  intellectual  trick- 
ery, and  she  had  no  theories  of  emancipation,  and  viewed 
almost  with  horror  the  mannish  young  women  with 


I5o  PINK  ROSES 


short  hair,  angular  movements,  and  drawling  voices  who 
were  beginning  to  appear  both  in  and  out  of  khaki. 
.  .  .  But  she  was  one  who  had  always  seen  clearly  and 
definitely;  it  was  necessary  to  her  so  to  see,  and  now 
she  was  aware  that  her  vision  was  beginning  to  be 
clouded,  blurred,  disturbed  by  mysterious  movements  in 
the  depth  of  her  being.  She  who  for  so  long  had  stood 
alone  was  conscious  that  she  could  not  continue  to  do 
so,  that  she  had  not  the  force,  that  indeed  she  was  not 
alone,  never  alone,  that  another  presence  had  become 
dear  to  her,  that  humanity  was  more  than  a  crowd  linked 
together  by  needs  and  habits,  that  she  needed  to  enter 
into  humanity  and  could  only  do  so  through  the  presence 
that  had  become  dear  to  her.  .  .  .  Somehow  all  these 
dim  emotions  were  associated  with  Sophina  and  the  hor- 
rible life  she  had  revealed  of  violent  false  emotions, 
hungry  people  cadging  money,  Jews,  poets,  women  with 
painted  faces  and  hard  eyes.  .  .  .  All  that  had  hurt 
and  at  the  same  time  had  stirred  her  until  she  knew  that 
she  could  no  longer  be  alone  as  she  had  been.  There 
was  no  need  for  it  any  longer.  Old  habits  were  broken, 
and  a  new  life  had  become  possible.  The  change  had 
been  miraculous,  and  she  wanted  the  miracle  to  continue. 
Unconsciously  she  had  always  rebuffed  and  failed  to 
understand  the  attentions  of  the  youths  and  young  men 
who  had  been  attracted  by  her.  There  had  been  no  time 
for  them,  and  besides  young  men  were,  on  the  whole, 
very  tiresome  and  callow.  But  now  that  there  was  no 
occasion  for  her  habit  of  reserve  she  was  afraid  that  it 
would  continue.  She  was  uneasy,  restless,  perturbed, 
and  she  felt  that  so  much  had  happened  that  nothing 
could  happen  again.  Her  heart  fluttered  in  this  new 
anxiety,  and,  raising  her  hand  to  it,  she  missed  the  pink 


LESLIE  151 

rose  she  had  pinned  at  her  breast,  and  at  once  her  heart 
was  still  as  a  stone.  Something  had  happened,  an  event 
of  real  importance.  She  tried  to  cover  it  up  by  telling 
herself  that  she  had  dropped  the  rose,  but  she  could  not; 
she  did  not  really  desire  to  hide  from  the  knowledge 
that  Trenham  had  taken  it — exactly  when,  she  could 
not  remember,  but  that  he  had  done  so  she  was  certain. 
She  had  gladly  marked  his  eyes  falling  on  it,  and  more 
gladly  still  she  remembered  now  a  moment  of  intimacy, 
almost  of  contact.  .  .  .  When?  How?  She  could 
not  remember.  It  was  too  painful  for  her  to  bear  such 
recollection.  .  .  . 

He  had  liked  Leslie,  and  would  be  a  powerful  friend 
to  him.  She  was  sure  that  Leslie  had  it  in  him  to  be 
a  man  of  the  kind  she  desired,  and  she  knew  that  Tren- 
ham had  made  a  deep  impression  on  him,  had  stiffened 
him  and  given  him  the  direction  which  from  his  school, 
where  he  learned  with  such  fatal  ease,  he  could  not  find. 
...  At  the  end  of  the  year  Leslie  would  go  to  West- 
minster, and  Ruth  fell  to  dreaming  as  she  gazed  over 
the  roofs  to  the  tree-tops  of  Regent's  Park,  of  Sir  Sey- 
mour Trenham  being  kind  to  him  and  having  him  to  his 
house,  giving  him  the  run  of  his  books,  and  what  was 
of  more  importance,  his  own  mind. 

Leslie  was  so  elated  by  his  lunch  with  the  great  man 
that  he  wanted  to  talk  about  it,  and  after  tea  he  went 
up  to  his  sister's  room  and  knocked,  received  no  reply, 
and  went  in  to  find  her  asleep  at  the  open  window  with 
her  head  on  her  arm.  He  stood  looking  down  at  her, 
and  he  thought,  to  his  surprise,  that  she  looked  very 
young.  He  had  always  thought  of  her  as  grown-up,  a 
person  in  authority,  endowed  with  almost  infallible  wis- 
dom. That  was  because  she  gave  orders,  and  was  Ruth, 


I52  PINK  ROSES 


the  person  to  whom  everything  was  referred.  As  he 
looked  down  at  her  he  found  himself  wondering  whether 
she  was  pretty  or  not.  Her  neck  was  beautiful,  her  hair 
rich  and  full  of  electric  vitality,  her  skin  soft  and  subtly 
pallid. 

"  Poor  old  Sis ! "  said  Leslie,  suddenly  regarding  him- 
self as  a  man.  "Poor  old  Sis!"  and  he  stooped  and 
kissed  her. 

Ruth  opened  her  eyes  slowly  and  happily,  and  seeing 
his  hand  near  hers  she  clutched  it  and  pressed  it  warmly. 

"  I  was  asleep,"  she  said,  with  a  smile,  as  she  became 
aware  that  while  she  slept  miraculously  new  and  mag- 
nificent emotions  and  desires  had  welled  up  and  had 
flooded  her  entire  being.  Had  she  been  alone  she  would 
have  wept  in  happy  silence,  but  with  Leslie  present  she 
could  only  clutch  his  hand  and  press  it  warmly,  rejoicing 
that  henceforth  she  could  understand  him  physically  and 
need  not  strain  with  her  mind  to  comprehend  the  incom- 
prehensible, the  subtle  delicate  movement  of  a  budding 
soul. 

It  was  very  quiet  in  the  little  street,  and  in  the  house, 
which  was  inhabited  by  two  other  obscure  families. 
The  quiet  was  good  when  so  much  was  happening. 

"I  did  like  that  man,  Ruth,"  said  Leslie.  "And  I 
liked  his  house  and  the  way  he  walks  and  his  clothes 
and  his  manner  as  he  talks  and  moves.  He  doesn't  seem 
a  bit  old,  really.  He  doesn't  treat  you  as  if  you  were  a 
rank  outsider  because  you  are  young.  He  might  have 
been  in  the  same  form  as  me.  ...  I  should  think  he 
knows  a  lot,  too.  I  saw  a  lot  of  history  books  on  his 
shelf  and  old  maps,  and  there  was  a  big  parcel  of  new 
books  in  the  hall.  .  .  .  Did  you  notice?" 

Was  there  anything  that  she  had  not  noticed? 


LESLIE  153 

"  It  must  be  you  he  likes,  Ruth,  or  he'd  have  asked 
Dad  to  lunch." 

Ruth's  heart  beat  wildly,  and  she  smiled  at  herself. 
"Be  quiet!  Be  quiet!" 

"  He  goes  to  see  Dad  at  the  laboratory." 

"  Oh,  no.  ...  I've  just  been  talking  to  Dad  about 
him,  and  Dad  hates  him.  I  think  he's  jealous  and 
fancies  he  ought  to  be  '  Sir,'  and  have  letters  after  his 
name,  and  be  bossing  the  whole  war.  Dad  doesn't 
change." 

"  I'm  sure  you're  wrong,  Leslie.  It  is  only  Dad's  way 
of  talking.  He  had  so  many  ideas  that  he  thinks  every- 
body ought  to  get  away  to  make  room  for  them.  If  Dad 
could  have  his  way  the  world  would  be  peopled  with  his 
ideas  instead  of  human  beings.  ..." 

"  Yes,"  said  Leslie.  "  That's  just  the  difference.  Sir 
Seymour  is  so  big  he  makes  room  for  everybody,  and 
one  idea  of  his  is  worth  a  million  of  Dad's.  It  doesn't 
get  in  anybody's  way.  ...  I  don't  believe  Dad  knows 
that  even  his  own  children  are  alive.  If  a  bomb  dropped 
on  us  and  wiped  us  out  he  would  go  on  just  the  same. 
.  .  .  We  ought  not  to  exist  because  we  can't  be  solved 
by  chemistry,  and  he  feels  this  so  strongly  that  in  fact 
we  don't  exist." 

"  Don't  be  bitter,  Leslie!  "  said  Ruth.  He  was  always 
like  that  after  he  had  made  one  of  his  periodic  attempts 
to  talk  to  his  father.  She  used  to  try  to  argue  with  him, 
but  now  she  understood  that  he  was  hurt  through  his 
passionate  need  for  affection.  .  .  .  Like  most  families 
who  have  fallen  below  their  traditional  standard  of  com- 
fort, the  Charles  Hobdays  kept  themselves  aloof  and  it 
had  been  drilled  into  Leslie  by  his  mother  that  he  must 
not  easily  make  friends,  and  what  he  was  too  proud  to 


IS4  PINK  ROSES 


seek  outside  he  could  not  help  every  now  and  then  trying 
to  win  at  home. 

"  I'm  not  bitter,"  he  grumbled,  "  only  it  is  hard  lines. 
I  didn't  choose  my  father,  but  he  might  at  least  be  decent 
about  it.  Some  chaps  I  know  have  awful  trouble  with 
their  fathers  because  they  are  religious;  but  Dad  isn't 
that.  They  do  know  what  they're  up  against,  but  with 
Dad  there's  nothing,  nothing  at  all.  He  never  has  an 
answer  in  an  argument.  He  just  talks  as  if  you  weren't 
there.  He's  .  .  .  he's  like  a  woman." 

Ruth  could  not  help  laughing: 

"  That  isn't  a  woman's  trick,  Leslie." 

"  Oh,  yes,  it  is.  I've  heard  fellows  arguing  with  their 
mothers.  .  .  .  It's  rotten  luck.  I  might  have  had  a 
father  like  Sir  Seymour  ...  I  might  have  had " 

He  seemed  to  recognize  that  he  was  being  not  a  little 
ridiculous,  for  he  stopped  suddenly  and  knelt  down  and 
buried  his  face  in  Ruth's  lap.  Her  eyes  filled  with  tears 
as  she  stroked  his  head,  tears  of  thankfulness  that  he 
could  turn  to  her  and  was  not  like  herself  who  had  never 
turned  to  a  soul,  and  had  still  burning  in  her  the  in- 
evitable and  needful  tears  of  youth. 


XII 
THE  SPIRIT  OF  LONDON 

LIKE  every  other  thinking  person  in  England  during  this 
fatal  time  Seymour  Trenham  had  recoiled  in  mind  from 
the  war.  He  could  neither  discover  the  real  issues,  nor 
face  those  set  before  him,  nor  come  to  any  valid  opinion 
upon  them,  nor  find  terms  in  which  to  discuss  events  as 
they  occurred  without  nervous  irritation.  .  .  .  Soon 
therefore  events,  huge  as  they  were,  became  fictitious. 
It  was  impossible  except  by  instinct  to  test  the  truth  of 
any  assertion  that  was  made  about  them.  Old  concep- 
tions of  international  conflicts  had  become  inadequate, 
old  national  feelings  were  thin  and  vapourish  compared 
with  the  facts  upon  which  they  were  brought  to  bear,  the 
steady  drain  of  the  young  life  of  the  country,  the  destruc- 
tion of  homes,  manners,  social  habits,  organization  for 
production,  the  deluge  of  Government  papers  in  hasty 
imitation  of  continental  methods.  .  .  .  There  was 
nothing  for  it  but  mechanically  to  continue  his  work, 
and  to  withdraw  into  himself  and  to  discover  and  in- 
dulge those  personal  predilections  which  in  his  strenu- 
ous career  had  been  passed  by  and  left  unsatisfied.  It 
was  a  painful  process,  for  he  had  never  before  explored 
beneath  the  surface  of  life,  but  gradually  he  found  that 
what  lay  beneath  the  surface  was  infinitely  more  excit- 
ing than  anything  that  occurred  externally.  There  was 
a  meaning  in  it,  a  purpose,  a  logic,  and  the  clearer  this 
perception  became  the  more  difficult  he  found  it  to  recon- 

155 


156  PINK  ROSES 


cile  his  vision  with  what  was  presented  to  his  eyes  in 
every  day  existence  and  indeed  with  what  had  been  in 
his  life.  He  was  accustomed  to  vast  machinery  and  to 
tremendous  mechanical  organization,  but  until  he  came 
to  London  he  had  not  understood  to  what  an  extent  it 
dominated  humanity.  .  .  .  During  the  early  days  of 
his  work  at  the  Ministry  he  had  spent  much  time  in 
gleefully  exploring  London,  and  comparing  it  with  the 
city  of  his  youth,  and  one  day  in  a  Tube  train,  oppressed 
by  the  monotony  of  the  expression  on  the  faces  of  the 
people,  he  had  had  a  kind  of  vision  of  their  appearing  in 
uniform,  bright  and  a  little  fantastic,  and  now  that 
vision  was  being  fulfilled,  only  the  uniforms  were  not 
gay  but  drab,  khaki  and  grey  and  dull  blue.  It  was  right 
that  people  who  wore  the  same  expression  should  wear 
the  same  dress,  but  the  result  rather  horrified  him  and 
drove  him  deeper  and  deeper  into  his  new  habit  of  self- 
exploration,  which  left  him  profoundly  dissatisfied.  He 
had  this  in  common  with  the  mass  of  people,  that  he 
had  allowed  himself  to  be  swept  along  by  organization. 
The  result  had  been  extremely  profitable  to  himself  in 
a  material  sense,  but  it  had  left  him  without  any  sense  of 
internal  continuity.  His  ambition  was  satisfied,  but  his 
most  personal  desire  was  not.  He  had  done  what  was 
wanted  by  the  organization  to  which  he  belonged,  and 
no  more.  True,  what  he  had  done  had  been  vital  to  that 
organization  and  he  had  been  richly  rewarded,  but  there 
it  ended.  He  could  spend  money;  he  could  work  in  his 
own  time :  and  until  now  he  had  been  content  and  proud 
of  himself. 

Nothing  had  ever  troubled  him  greatly:  nothing  and 
no  one  had  stood  in  his  way  for  long.  And  then,  after 
his  transfer  to  London  he  had  begun  to  question  it  all. 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LONDON  157 

.  .  .  Perhaps  it  was  only  the  difference  in  the  people 
among  whom  he  moved,  among  whom  commercial 
values  were  complicated  by  social  considerations.  No; 
there  was  nothing  very  much  in  that.  He  was  easily  a 
social  success,  and  had  no  difficulty  in  assimilating  cur- 
rent ideas  and  jargon,  though  it  took  him  some  time  to 
recover  from  his  bewilderment  at  finding  the  London  of 
his  youth  so  completely  disappeared.  That  had  been  a 
London  of  hansom  cabs,  really  fashionable  people  who 
lived  an  enchanted  life  entirely  apart,  noisy  thorough- 
fares, peaceful  streets  and  squares,  a  confident  respecta- 
bility splashed  with  rowdiness.  Now  the  respectability 
had  disappeared;  barriers  between  classes  had  been 
broken  down  and  London  had  no  character,  no  distinc- 
tion. Bond  Street  and  Regent  Street  had  become  like 
other  market-places  of  blatant  competition.  There  were 
no  shops  left  which  composedly  supplied  quality  for 
quality,  none  that  the  average  man  would  be  afraid  to 
enter.  Similarly  there  were  no  houses  which  had  an 
atmosphere  so  that  a  man's  breeding  was  instantly  re- 
vealed in  it,  and  even  politics  were  now  conducted  in 
the  language  of  the  market-place. 

"There  is  nothing  left,"  thought  Trenham,  "abso- 
lutely nothing  left." 

He  had  always  lived  in  the  North  with  the  dream  of 
London  in  his  heart.  That  was  perfectly  clear  to  him 
now,  though  in  all  those  years  he  had  hardly  been  con- 
scious of  it,  and  now  he  had  to  face  the  cruel  fact  that 
the  London  of  his  dreams  had  been  a  thing  so  preten- 
tious that  it  could  not  weather  the  storm :  it  had  been  a 
leaking  hulk,  which,  drifting  away  in  fair  weather  had 
sunk  on  the  first  stirring  of  the  waters.  .  .  .  Coming 
up,  eager  and  sanguine,  to  the  London  of  his  dreams  he 


i58  PINK  ROSES 


had  found  it  gone,  and  at  first  told  himself  that  it  had 
never  existed  except  in  his  own  imagination.  The  dis- 
appointment was  bitter  because  he  knew  that  he  had  al- 
ways worked  for  it,  for  that  and  for  nothing  else.  Eng- 
land, Great  Britain,  the  British  Empire  had  always 
meant  to  him,  London,  to  sustain  whose  life  the  world 
had  been  justifiably  ransacked.  .  .  .  But  who  could 
justify  the  new  London?  He  tried  loyally  to  do  so,  but 
could  not:  a  city  hypnotized  by  its  newspapers,  for 
whom  the  world  was  simply  a  place  of  commercial  com- 
petition, which  at  last  had  become  so  bitter  that  the 
nations  had  fallen  upon  each  other  like  a  pack  of  hungry 
dogs  nosing  after  a  bone.  .  .  .  That  was  the  world  as 
Trenham  saw  it  and  as  he  accepted  it.  There  was  noth- 
ing to  be  said,  nothing  to  be  thought  about  it.  Human 
life  had  become  of  no  value,  but  there  must  be  some- 
where in  humanity  hopes  and  desires  that  could  make  it 
struggle  on  when  outwardly  there  was  no  satisfaction 
to  be  found. 

It  was  then  that  he  plunged  beneath  the  surface  and 
began  to  live  a  strangely  double  life,  one  of  intense 
excitement,  as  he  discovered  all  that  he  had  been  beneath 
his  strenuous  and  successful  activity,  the  other  of  me- 
chanical and  monotonous  boredom  in  which  without 
effort  he  could  put  forth  the  skill  and  knowledge  which 
were  demanded  of  him.  His  life  at  home  seemed  as 
mechanical  and  without  interest;  he  wrote  regularly  to 
his  wife  without  saying  anything  of  what  was  in  his 
mind.  It  had  never  been  his  habit  to  do  so.  His  mar- 
riage had  been  a  success.  He  and  his  wife  had  fallen 
into  their  places  in  their  household  when  they  existed 
much  as  the  servants  did  to  fulfil  their  functions  in  it. 
.  .  .  But  here  in  London  he  was  reluctant  to  think  of 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LONDON  159 

these  things.  They  were  as  much  a  part  of  him  as  his 
house  or  his  watch-chain.  He  had  acquired  them,  and 
they  were  his. 

But  were  they?  That  was  the  question  that  plagued 
him  more  and  more,  especially  after  Ruth's  visit  and 
their  dinner  together  and  the  lunch  with  Leslie,  when, 
as  she  passed  him  in  the  narrow  hall,  he  stole  the  pink 
rose  from  her  bosom.  .  .  .  Were  they  his?  Were 
they  part  of  him?  Were  they  possessed?  .  .  .  This 
little  house  in  North  Street  was  his,  although  he  did  not 
own  it,  the  pink  rose  was  his,  although  he  had  stolen  it. 
Their  significance  was  alive  in  him,  affecting  every 
breath  he  drew,  and  they  made  him  feel  sure  again  that 
his  dreams  after  all  had  been  true,  that  beneath  the  pre- 
tentious London  which  had  been  destroyed  was  another 
which  was  indestructible.  It  lived  in  this  little  house. 
It  lived  in  the  pink  rose  which  he  carried  in  his  pocket- 
book.  It  lived  in  Ruth. 

He  could  not  long  disguise  from  himself  the  fact  that 
nothing  else  mattered.  This  was  true.  What  was  hap- 
pening in  the  world  was  the  confusion  of  many  lies. 
He  was  working  in  that  confusion,  helping  perhaps  to 
produce  order  out  of  it,  and  so  was  Ruth,  but  that  did 
not  alter  the  fact  of  the  truth  they  shared.  They  had 
nothing  to  do  with  it.  When  it  had  passed  over  they 
and  their  truth  would  be  left  untouched. 

He  approached  her  through  Leslie,  for  whom  he  had 
conceived  a  warm  affection,  not  only  because  he  was 
Ruth's  brother,  but  because  he  found  that  Leslie  also 
lived  beneath  the  surface  of  life,  and  was  aware  of  its 
movements  before  they  were  expressed  in  utterance  or 
in  events.  And  in  Leslie  there  was  so  much  of  Ruth,  a 
wonderful  purity,  an  astonishing  knowledge  of  and  sym- 


160  PINK  ROSES 


pathy  with  women,  to  whom  his  attitude  was  one  of 
tender  chivalry.  Trenham  discovered  this  one  day  when 
he  took  Leslie  to  a  munition  factory  just  outside  Lon- 
don. A  pretty,  pale  girl  was  pushing  a  trolley  between 
one  machine  and  another.  Almost  imperceptibly  she 
kept  trying  to  stop,  but  then  forced  herself  to  go  on 
because  the  machine-minders  at  either  end  depended  on 
her.  Leslie  noticed  it  at  once,  and  went  and  pushed  her 
trolley  and  gave  her  the  three  minutes'  rest  which  made 
all  the  difference  to  her.  It  was  only  after  Leslie  had 
acted  that  Trenham  noticed  the  girl's  need.  He  was 
greatly  disturbed,  for  the  little  scene  roused  in  him  a 
faculty  that  he  had  never  used,  instinctive  percep- 
tion. .  .  . 

Ruth  avoided  him  for  some  time.  It  was  enough  for 
her  to  hear  about  him  from  Leslie,  who  was  full  of  ad- 
miration for  that  of  which  Trenham  was  already  almost 
contemptuously  weary,  his  ability  and  power.  They  had 
never  won  him  anything  that  was  worth  having.  The 
good  things,  the  desirable  things,  were  those  which  Ruth 
and  Leslie  acquired  so  easily — by  understanding,  by 
readiness  with  unobtrusive  help.  Both  of  them  gave 
it  to  himself  in  abundance,  though  of  course  never  in 
material  shape.  They  could  both  hear  the  meaning  be- 
hind his  words,  and  soon  when  a  day  passed  without  his 
having  seen  one  or  other  of  them  he  felt  lost  and  empty, 
and  he  arranged  to  be  more  directly  in  contact  with  Ruth 
at  the  Ministry.  He  moved  her  into  the  room  next  his 
own — an  enormous  board-room  with  a  vast  table  round 
which  were  more  than  twenty  chairs — and  she  brought 
Sophina  with  her. 

Sophina  became  steadily  more  Russian  as  Carline 
grew  more  ardent,  and  she  developed  extraordinary 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LONDON  161 

tricks  and  mannerisms,  though  fortunately  the  effect  of 
her  finding  a  purpose  was  to  brace  her  up  and  make 
her  more  efficient.  Carline  was  rich :  the  prize  was 
worth  the  effort.  Also  her  quick  eyes  missed  very  little, 
and  she  was  aware  of  the  way  things  were  tending  with 
Ruth  and  Trenham,  and  she  thought  that  if  Ruth  pros- 
pered she  would  have  her  share  in  it. 

There  were  always  flowers  for  Ruth  on  her  desk.  If 
it  was  raining  there  was  always  a  taxi  to  take  her  home. 
Carline  would  bring  her  a  parcel  of  books  for  Leslie  on 
those  occasions,  so  that  she  could  not  possibly  have 
walked  with  them  to  the  station.  Trenham  frequently 
asked  Carline  and  Ruth  to  dinner  with  him,  and  at  last 
Sophina,  discovering  this,  made  Carline  take  her  out  one 
night  when  dinner  had  been  arranged,  and  he  telephoned 
from  a  restaurant  in  Jermyn  Street  to  say  that  he  was 
unwell  and  could  not  come. 

Ruth  had  already  arrived  in  North  Street;  she  was 
wearing  a  new  green  frock,  very  simply  made,  and 
flowers  that  had  been  on  her  desk  fresh  that  morning. 
.  .  .  There  had  been  terrible  news  from  the  front. 
The  streets  were  deserted.  It  was  raining.  ...  It  was 
a  wonderful  relief  to  go  to  the  little  house  in  North 
Street  and  to  shut  out  the  world  with  the  thick  brocade 
curtains.  She  was  a  little  early.  Trenham  came  down 
jubilant  with  the  news  that  Carline  could  not  come. 

"  I'm  glad,"  he  said.  "  We  never  forget  the  Ministry 
when  he  is  here.  We  talk  of  nothing  else.  .  .  .  Bad 
news  to-night.  It  is  very  horrible." 

"Don't  talk  of  it,"  said  Ruth.  "I  was  feeling  so 
safe  here." 

He  was  exalted  to-night,  and  she  had  never  seen  him 
so  confident  and  so  completely  at  his  ease.  They  talked 


T62  PINK  ROSES 


little  at  dinner,  so  engrossed  were  they  in  seeking  com- 
fort in  each  other's  presence.  Their  eyes  did  not  meet, 
for  both  looked  round  the  room,  both  remembering  the 
occasion  on  which  they  had  enjoyed  each  other's  com- 
pany there;  and  she  was  suddenly  uneasy  at  the  thought 
of  having  allowed  herself  to  owe  so  much  to  him.  He 
felt  that  in  her  at  once,  and  said: 

"  Please,  please  don't  be  unhappy  even  for  a  second." 

She  was  so  astonished  that  she  looked  up  and  smiled, 
and  their  eyes  met,  and  he  was  at  once  serious,  almost 
stern  as  in  his  heart  and  mind  there  throbbed  the  knowl- 
edge of  his  love  for  her.  They  had  shut  out  the  world. 
He  had  lived  for  months  now  beneath  the  surface  of  his 
life,  exploring,  digging,  and  there  had  come  welling  up 
this  love.  She,  too,  had  hardly  begun  to  live  outside  her 
own  thoughts  and  she  had  no  defences;  she  had  no  ex- 
perience, no  acquired  skill  in  handling  small  emotions 
that  she  could  apply  to  great.  .  .  .  She  owed  him 
everything.  That  was  how  her  feeling  expressed  itself, 
and  she  needed  no  words  from  him  to  tell  her  that  he 
loved  her.  He  and  she  had  always  understood  each 
other  best  without  words. 

From  sternness  his  expression  melted  into  tender  con- 
fidence. 

"  I  feel  so  sure  that  it  is  you,"  he  said.  "  You  couldn't 
lie  as  women  do.  ...  You  would  wait  for  ever  until 
the  one  you  really  needed  came,  and  then  you  would 
not  wait." 

Her  left  hand  began  to  tremble  in  her  lap.  She  looked 
down  at  it  and  wondered  at  it,  so  unaccountably  trem- 
bling. It  gave  her  an  odd  pleasure  to  watch  it,  a  thing 
out  of  control,  belonging  to  herself  who  had  been  so 
completely  disciplined  that  no  unruly  thought  or  feeling 


THE  SPIRIT  OF  LONDON  163 

ever  dared  to  rear  its  head.  And  she  was  not  afraid, 
not  afraid,  not  afraid.  .  .  .  She  wanted  to  laugh  at 
herself,  but  suppressed  it  for  the  pleasure  of  suppress- 
ing it,  just  to  show  that  she  could  do  it. 

After  dinner  in  the  study  she  sat  on  the  sofa,  and  he 
read  to  her  Wordsworth  and  Keats.  Half-way  through 
the  Belle  Dame  Sans  Merci  he  shut  the  book  and  threw 
it  down.  He  was  not  a  yard  away  from  her.  Without 
turning  he  put  out  his  hand  and  gripped  her  arm,  and 
said: 

"  We're  pretending.    Don't  let  us  pretend  any  more." 

"  No,"  she  said,  looking  down  at  his  strong  hand. 
She  placed  her  hand  on  it,  only  just  touching  it. 

"  You  are  mine,"  he  said.  "  You  are  mine,  my  Ruth, 
as  nothing  else  was  ever  mine." 

They  had  shut  out  the  world.  They  were  beneath  the 
surface  of  life.  Between  the  beauty  of  what  they  shared 
and  the  fantastic  horror  of  life  as  it  had  taken  shape 
there  was  nothing  in  common. 

"  You  are  mine — my  Ruth,  mine,  mine,  mine." 


XIII 
PAYING  THE  PRICE 

ALMOST  every  night  at  the  Cafe  Claribel,  Trevor 
Mathew  and  Cora  Dinmont  were  to  be  seen  dining  at 
the  table  in  the  top  corner  of  the  Cafe  Saloon.  They 
sat  there  from  a  quarter-past  seven  to  half-past  eight, 
and  then  went  to  a  cinema  until  it  closed  with  "  God 
Save  the  King."  They  then  returned  either  to  his  flat  or 
hers,  which  were  on  the  same  landing  in  a  block  in 
Shaftesbury  Avenue.  .  .  .  He  was  not  unhappy. 
Neither  was  he  happy.  He  had  the  satisfaction  of 
knowing  that,  like  his  freinds,  he  had  accepted  an  altered 
and  an  anonymous  existence  in  response  to  the  pressure 
of  events,  and  he  had  the  interest  of  exploring  for  the 
first  time  the  world  of  women,  which  is  not  without  its 
educational  importance.  .  .  .  After  a  while  he  was 
astonished  that  he  had  ever  idealized  them  or  submitted 
to  the  prevalent  notion  that  they  were  somehow  mysteri- 
ous. Cora  was  not  essentially  different  from  himself, 
except  that  she  had  no  intelligence,  but  before  very  long 
he  was  forced  to  admit  that  this  was  not  a  profound 
difference  either.  She  did  not  think,  but  she  was  more 
practically  selective  than  himself,  and  without  agonizing 
or  racking  her  brains  she  had  come  to  much  the  same 
conclusion  about  the  war  as  he  had  himself,  namely, 
that  it  could  not  absorb  the  whole  of  humanity,  and  that 
therefore  things  would  somehow  be  all  right.  The  war 
could  never  absorb  either  herself  or  Mr.  Ysnaga,  who 

164 


PAYING  THE  PRICE  165 

was  "  a  sight  too  clever,"  and  she  had  lost  her  profes- 
sional interest  in  soldiers  and  with  it  her  horror  of  their 
hysteria.  .  .  .  She  was  frenziedly  in  love  with  Trevor, 
and  endeavoured  with  her  jealousy  completely  to  isolate 
him.  This  was  easy,  because  the  war  had  snapped  many 
of  his  ties  in  London,  most  of  them  had  been  through 
Hardman,  and  without  his  friend  he  did  not  care  to  hold 
them,  especially  after  Cherryman  had  created  an  almost 
unrecognizable  Hardman  for  the  public.  There  were 
times  when  he  wished  to  God  Cora  would  leave  him 
alone  with  Sydney,  but  he  had  to  give  up  all  hope  of 
that  because  she  could  not  bear  him  even  to  nurse  the 
dog.  She  wanted  to  be  with  him  from  moment  to  mo- 
ment, and  did  not  wish  either  of  them  to  do  or  think 
anything  apart  from  the  other. 

At  first  that  had  been  a  welcome  rest,  and  he  remained 
grateful  to  Cora,  but  her  jealous  suspicion  at  first  irri- 
tated and  at  length  frightened  him.  She  would  not  even 
believe  him  when  he  told  her  that  he  had  been  at  the 
office  all  day,  and  he  had  to  give  a  minute  description  of 
his  doings  there.  .  .  .  Were  there  any  women?  Any 
typists?  Any  clients  who  came  because  he  was  so  nice- 
looking  ?  .  .  .  She  would  not  let  him  write  letters,  and 
often  burned  unopened  letters  from  his  home. 

He  could  endure  it  because  he  had  suffered  so  much. 
What  he  found  it  hard  to  bear  was  his  longing  that  she 
should  have  suffered.  But  there  was  never  a  sign  of 
that.  Her  enormous  vitality  had  sent  her  crashing 
through  life  untouched.  She  had  violent  emotions,  but 
only  as  a  kettle  has  steam.  They  were  often  unpleasant 
while  they  lasted,  but  when  they  had  gone  she  was 
blandly  and  innocently  unconscious  of  them,  and  he 
could  only  laugh  at  her.  Indeed,  she  was  so  portentous 


1 66  PINK  ROSES 


a  joke  that  he  could  not  but  be  fond  of  her,  and  he  often 
used  to  chuckle  as  he  thought  that  human  beings  are 
most  adorable  in  their  stupidity.  .  .  .  Cora  was  quite 
adorable,  and  he  would  have  been  perfectly  happy  if  she 
had  just  let  him  adore  her  without  her  adoring  him,  but 
she  turned  it  into  a  competition,  and  could  not  bear  the 
idea  of  his  winning  the  prize.  .  .  .  When  things  were 
difficult  Trevor  used  to  think:  "Well,  well  .  .  .  It  is 
only  for  a  year." 

It  was  expensive,  but  he  had  his  own  money,  and  did 
not  need  to  account  to  his  father,  and  it  was  worth  it 
because  it  was  a  complete  escape  from  the  war. 

His  new  life,  the  holiday  at  the  sea  had  made  him  so 
fit  that  Henry  Hobday  had  insisted  on  his  submitting  to 
another  medical  examination.  Cora  wept  and  wailed 
when  he  told  her,  had  visions  of  his  going  out  to  France 
and  being  sent  back  maimed,  and  then  bullied,  tortured, 
and  worried  him  until  he  was  more  dead  than  alive. 
Her  jealous  instinct  knew  just  how  far  she  could  go, 
and  on  the  day  appointed  for  his  examination  he  had 
been  in  exactly  the  right  condition  to  secure  complete 
rejection.  He  felt  wretched  and  really  ill  as  he  walked 
into  Scotland  Yard.  The  sergeant  who  took  him  to  his 
undressing  cell  said : 

"  Feeling  bad,  sir.  I  don't  think  they'll  keep  you  long. 
You're  one  of  the  lucky  ones." 

And  when  Trevor  came  out  with  his  complete  rejec- 
tion, and  tipped  him,  he  said: 

"  Congratulations,  sir;  though  there's  worse  than  you 
been  took." 

What  struck  Trevor  as  very  odd  was  that  he  was 
conscious  of  no  sense  of  transition.  The  life  he  was 
leading  and  this  were  exactly  on  the  same  level  of  mind- 


PAYING  THE  PRICE  167 

lessness,  backed  by  all  the  force  of  an  aboriginal  brutal 
tradition.  .  .  .  He  staggered  out  very  cold  from  ex- 
posure while  waiting  his  turn,  feeling  as  though  he  had 
bumped  into  something  about  as  conscious  of  his  exist- 
ence as  an  express  train.  Being  bullied  by  Cora  and 
prodded  by  doctors  seemed  to  be  part  of  the  same  buf- 
feting process  directed  upon  him  in  a  desperate  attempt 
on  the  part  of  things  in  general  to  knock  some  sense  into 
his  foolish,  inquiring  head. 

There  was  not  much  left  of  the  Cambridge  Trevor, 
still  less  of  the  Trevor  who  had  shone  for  a  brief  year 
in  the  Hardman  trio.  He  was  really  feeling  shockingly 
ill  when  he  felt  a  hand  on  his  arm,  and  he  faintly  heard 
Cherryman's  voice: 

"  Hello,  Trevor,  my  dear.  .  .  .  What's  the  matter? 
You  don't  look  very  well." 

"  No,"  said  Trevor.  "  I've  been  re-examined.  I'm  no 
good." 

"  Poor  chap !  poor  chap !  "  said  Cherryman.  "  I  know 
it  has  been  a  terrible  disappointment  for  you.  Where 
are  you  living  now?" 

Trevor  lied  and  gave  an  imaginary  address,  which 
Cherryman  wrote  down  neatly  in  a  little  book. 

"  Do  come  and  dine  with  me  some  day,"  he  said. 
"  Do  you  remember  Carline  ?  He  has  discovered  a  won- 
derful Russian  girl  in  the  Ministry  and  he  often  brings 
her.  Great  fun.  The  first  thing  she  remembers  is  a 
pogrom.  .  .  .  You  know,  all  the  things  you  read 
about.  By  the  way,  aren't  you  in  Hobdays?  There's 
a  friend  of  hers,  a  Miss  Ruth  Hobday,  also  in  the  Min- 
istry. ...  A  beauty,  my  dear.  If  it  weren't  for  this 
beastly  war,  she'd  be  taken  up.  ...  But  everybody  is 
too  sad  now,  or  working  too  hard.  We  take  on  two 


168  PINK  ROSES 


hundred  new  people  a  week  in  our  department  now,  but 
it  only  seems  to  make  more  work.  .  .  .  Why  don't 
you  come  in  ?  " 

He  looked  with  almost  wistful  pity  at  Trevor,  who 
had  become  singular  by  not  being  in  a  Government  de- 
partment, and  Trevor  felt  that  he  was  going  to  be  asked 
the  question  that  had  been  on  the  hoardings,  "  What 
did  you  do  in  the  Great  War?" 

Cherryman  held  out  a  stiff  hand : 

"  Don't  forget.  .  .  .  I'm  still  in  the  same  old 
rooms." 

Of  course  he  was!  It  would  take  more  than  the  for- 
mation of  an  army  to  shift  Cherryman! 

Trevor  had  enjoyed  meeting  him,  and  out  of  their 
meaningless  conversation  one  name  remained :  Ruth 
Hobday,  who  was  a  beauty.  A  niece  of  old  Henry's. 
Trevor  had  heard  of  the  head  of  the  firm's  poor  rela- 
tions and  the  cracked  inventor.  This  could  not  be  one 
of  them,  surely.  They  lived  in  the  suburbs,  and  even  the 
clerks  spoke  disparagingly  of  Mr.  Charles  as  a  poor  fool 
who  had  refused  to  join  the  firm. 

"  Ruth  Hobday !  Ruth  Hobday !  "  thought  Trevor, 
stamping  the  name  in  upon  his  mind.  He  did  not  know 
why,  perhaps  to  reassure  himself  that  the  whole  tribe  of 
women  was  not  contained  in  Cora  Dinmont. 

He  regarded  the  meeting  with  Cherryman  as  a  piece 
of  good  luck,  such  as  one  no  longer  expects  in  the  world 
in  its  present  condition.  By  all  means  he  would  go  to 
his  rooms  and  meet  Carline  and  his  Russian,  and  perhaps 
Ruth  Hobday.  .  .  .  He  started  at  the  name,  then  knew 
and  recognized  that  he  was  longing  to  meet  a  girl  of  his 
own  standing,  one  who  could  give  him  a  cool  friendly 
smile,  such  as  girls  used  to  give  in  the  old  days  before 


PAYING  THE  PRICE  169 

the  war  in  that  existence  which  was  as  far  off  as  the 
Roman  Empire.  .  .  .  Ancient  History.  .  .  .  And  he 
knew,  too,  in  that  moment  that  if  the  war  went  on  much 
longer  he  would  marry  Cora  out  of  sheer  non-resistance, 
because  she  knew  what  she  wanted  and  he  did  not. 
Everything  that  he  had  wanted  had  been  swept  away. 
.  .  .  Dear  God !  it  would  be  good  to  want  something 
again,  something  personal.  .  .  .  One  couldn't  go  on 
living  merely  on  wanting  something  for  millions  and 
millions  of  people.  Humanity  was  a  nice  thing  to  think 
about,  but  millions  and  millions  of  people  were  horrible, 
especially  when  they  had  forgotten  all  about  humanity 
in  their  obsession  with  nationality.  .  .  .  And  so,  as  a 
man  picks  up  a  shining  pebble  in  the  hope  that  it  may 
be  a  precious  stone,  Trevor  repeated  the  name :  Ruth 
Hobday,  and  he  wondered  if  it  were  she  whom  he  had 
passed  in  the  dark  passage  one  day.  It  might  be.  He 
could  not  remember  anything  about  her  except  that  she 
was  young,  but  the  idea  of  youth  was  just  the  comfort 
that  he  needed,  and  his  dazed  thoughts  began  to  turn  to 
spring  flowers,  white  clouds,  and  an  apple-tree  in  blos- 
som swaying  above  a  quiet  river.  .  .  .  Oh,  yes,  Cam- 
bridge— Grantchester — the  orchard  and  the  punts  gliding 
by  full  of  happy  people  going  a-picnicking.  How  inno- 
cent that  had  all  been!  How  could  that  life  have  grown 
into  the  monstrous  mockery  of  existence  that  had  taken 
possession  of  London  and  expelled  from  it  youth  and 
charm,  gaiety  and  eagerness?  How  could  so  sweet  a 
river  flow  down  into  such  a  muddy  stream?  And  how 
could  he  even  now  be  going  back  to  the  glaring  flat  in 
Shaftesbury  Avenue? 

Yet  he  could  not  but  go  on.   .    .    .   Where  else  could 
he  go?    Peto  had  been  taken  down  to  Wales  to  spend 


i7o  PINK  ROSES 


the  rest  of  his  life  staring  out  of  one  eye  at  the  moun- 
tains. .  .  .  After  all,  Cora  was  a  good  sort,  and  she 
was  a  decent  creature.  She  acted  when  others  chattered. 
That  she  was  at  present  engaged  in  devouring  him  by 
inches  did  not  matter.  She  was  engaged  and  passion- 
ately, and  this  was  as  good  a  form  of  destruction  as  any 
other.  It  was  not  to  her  devouring  him  that  he  objected 
so  much  as  to  her  having  no  other  interest  outside  the 
process.  .  .  .  But  he  was  very  vague  about  all  that. 
What  was  clear  to  him  was  that  he  could  find  no  valid 
reason  for  not  going  back.  If  he  had  been  a  soldier  of 
course  it  would  have  been  very  different.  He  could  have 
done  as  he  pleased  then,  but,  being  a  civilian,  he 
must  remember  that,  after  all,  there  are  certain  obliga- 
tions. 

His  thoughts  were  more  and  more  muddled  as  he 
ascended  the  stairs,  until  at  last  he  sank  into  the  mind- 
lessness  into  which  Cora  had  driven  him. 

She  had  heard  him  and  opened  her  door  as  he  was 
going  into  his  own  at  which,  on  the  inside,  Sydney  was 
scratching  in  frantic  delight.  Cora  was  as  exuberant 
in  her  relief  as  the  pup. 

"They  didn't  take  you?"  she  cried.  "Oh!  Thank 
God!  Thank  God!"  ' 

She  rushed  at  him,  flung  her  arms  round  his  neck 
and  dragged  him  into  her  own  flat.  Sydney  followed, 
and  was  shortly  evicted  for  his  usual  offence. 

"  I  don't  know  what  I  should  ha'  done  if  they'd  taken 
you.  I'd  ha'  done  something  dreadful  or  gone  into  the 
Red  Cross  to  nurse  you  if  you'd  been  wounded.  .  .  . 
But  you  look  bad,  Boy.  Were  they  very  hard  on  you? 
...  I  must  feed  you  up  and  give  you  milk.  Rum  and 
milk's  good  stuff." 


PAYING  THE  PRICE  171 

Trevor  could  hardly  hear  what  she  said.  He  was  very 
nearly  in  a  state  of  collapse,  but  she  insisted  on  his  mak- 
ing love  to  her.  It  was  her  only  idea  of  happiness. 

At  last  he  said : 

"  I  think  I'm  going  to  be  ill  ...  Somehow  every- 
thing has  been  too  much  for  me.  Being  left  out  of  it 
is  the  worst  thing  that  could  happen  to  a  man." 

Cora  blubbered. 

"Oh!   Don't  say  that!   Don't  say  that !" 

She  was  terrified  by  illness,  did  not  know  what  to  do 
with  it,  and  in  her  heart  despised  and  hated  it. 

He  said : 

"  Perhaps  I'd  better  go  home " 

The  bare  idea  stung  her  into  a  fury. 

"  No.  No.  No.  You'll  be  all  right,  Boy.  I'll  look 
after  you.  But  you  mustn't  be  ill.  Why  should  you 
be  ill  when  we're  so  happy  together?" 

"  It's  a  kind  of  seasickness,"  said  Trevor.  "  Have 
you  ever  been  on  the  river  and  got  the  wash  of  a 
steamer?  .  .  .  Well,  it's  like  that.  .  .  .  We're  in  the 
wash  of  the  war,  and  it's  making  us  all  seasick.  Much 
better  to  be  killed  or  wounded." 

He  was  much  more  ill  than  he  knew,  and  the  next 
morning  could  not  get  up.  Cora,  in  alarm,  carried  him 
over  to  his  own  flat  and  put  him  to  bed,  and  telephoned 
for  the  doctor,  a  little  French  Jew  with  a  strictly  West 
End  practice.  He  looked  for  the  symptoms  with  which 
he  was  familiar,  and  not  finding  them  was  nonplussed. 
He  knew  nothing  of  the  sickness  of  the  soul,  because  he 
had  long  ago  come  to  the  conclusion  that  there  was  not 
such  a  thing.  He  regarded  human  beings  as  greedy  ani- 
mals who  were  at  the  mercy  of  their  appetites,  and,  like 
every  other  philosopher,  found  in  the  war  the  grand 


I72  PINK  ROSES 


confirmation  of  his  view.  He  decided  that  Trevor  was 
suffering  from  the  appetite  which  was  his  especial  study, 
prescribed,  gave  orders  as  to  diet,  and  said  that  there 
was  nothing  much  that  he  could  do.  He  had  never  seen 
such  a  complete  collapse  before.  He  shrugged  his  shoul- 
ders and  told  Cora  that  the  only  thing  was  to  keep  the 
patient  in  bed  until  he  wanted  to  get  up — a  malady  of 
the  will.  The  patient  had  better  be  left  alone  as  much 
as  possible,  plenty  of  sleep — alone.  .  .  .  Cora  was 
angry  and  affronted.  When  the  doctor  had  gone  she 
turned  to  Trevor  and  told  him  that  there  was  nothing 
really  wrong  with  him.  .  .  .  He  smiled,  but  did  not 
reply.  He  could  not.  Though  he  heard  her  she  seemed 
to  be  thousands  of  leagues  away.  His  head  ached  and 
his  mouth  was  dry,  and  his  eyes  burned  in  their  sockets. 
The  thoughts  that  whizzed  through  his  mind  were  such 
that  no  one  could  possibly  have  understood  them,  no 
one.  They  were  new  thoughts  that  were  related  to  noth- 
ing in  the  world  as  it  was  or  as  it  had  been,  but  to  the 
world  as  it  was  going  to  be.  ...  It  was  as  though  he 
had  been  turned  upside  down  so  that  the  deepest 
thoughts  and  feelings  in  him  came  uppermost  and  moved 
most  easily  while  obvious  and  superficial  ideas  had  the 
most  bitter  difficulty  in  emerging  at  all.  He  did  not  want 
to  eat  or  drink  or  sleep.  He  never  moved,  but  lay  still 
at  the  mercy  of  this  terrible  inward  activity. 

Cora  could  only  weep  when  she  spoke  to  him,  and  did 
not  answer,  and  she  had  frightful  visions  of  his  going 
mad,  falling  upon  her,  attacking  her,  killing  her.  .  .  . 
But  she  would  rather  have  that  than  let  him  go. 
She  telephoned  to  the  office  to  say  that  he  was  unwell, 
filled  his  room  with  flowers,  slept  on  the  sofa  at  the  foot 
of  his  bed,  and  kept  Sydney  away  from  him  because  the 


PAYING  THE  PRICE  173 

dog  was  the  only  creature  he  recognized  and  she  could 
not  bear  to  see  his  thin  hand  reaching  out  for  it. 

This  went  on  for  ten  days,  at  the  end  of  which  she 
was  pulled  up  sharp  by  her  maid,  who,  missing  the  tips 
which  Trevor  gave  her  constantly,  demanded  her  wages. 
Cora  then  found  that  she  had  no  money,  not  a  shilling. 
She  had  spent  all  her  savings — God  knows  on  what — 
and  she  had  pawned  or  sold  her  jewellery.  She  drew 
out  a  cheque  from  Trevor's  book  and  held  his  hand 
while  he  signed  it,  but  the  Bank  returned  it  marked 
"  R.D.,"  and  she  was  so  disappointed  and  amazed  that 
she  had  not  wit  enough  to  go  to  the  Bank,  explain,  and 
ask  them  to  confirm  her  statement.  .  .  .  And  she  was 
getting  sick  of  the  long  silence.  It  was  telling  on  her 
nerves.  .  .  .  To  have  a  maid,  a  good  cook  and  house- 
keeper like  Estelle  was  necessary  to  her  status.  To  let 
her  go  was  to  begin  to  sink.  When  Trevor  got  well  he 
would  never  stand  her  working  with  her  own  hands, 
because  he  was  a  gentleman.  That  was  unthinkable. 
She  made  Estelle  look  out  one  of  her  old  dresses,  re- 
model it,  and  give  it  the  fashionable  tone,  and  went  to 
the  Cafe  Claribel.  Trevor  would  never  know.  It  would 
only  be  until  he  was  well.  .  .  .  She  had  read  in  books 
that  love  was  sacrifice.  She  would  love  him  only  the 
more.  She  could  not  possibly  look  after  him  and  the 
two  flats  if  Estelle  went,  and  maids  were  very  hard  to 
find  because  they  had  all  gone  into  munitions  or  had 
become  the  equal  of  their  mistresses  now  that  the  Bishop 
of  London  had  closed  the  Empire  promenade  and  upset 
the  old  order  of  things.  .  .  .  She  must  look  after  him, 
and  there  was  no  other  way  but  by  this  great  sacrifice. 
To  Cora  it  was  a  very  solemn  occasion.  It  was  to  her 
as  though  she  were  raising  herself  at  one  gesture  to  his 


i74  PINK  ROSES 


level.  ...  A  blue  dress,  a  large  blue  feather  in  her 
hat,  a  bunch  of  white  flowers  in  her  bosom — white  for 
sacrifice ! — she  went  to  the  Claribel.  .  .  .  Ah !  The 
smell  of  the  place  was  good,  and  it  was  good  to  be  alone. 
But  that  she  would  not  admit  to  herself.  .  .  .  What 
she  took  for  an  heroic  desire  for  sacrifice  was  an  acute 
nostalgia,  a  hunger  to  live  again  simply,  unsocially, 
without  emotion,  or  more  than  passing  interest.  For  a 
moment  she  was  angry  with  Trevor  because  he  was  so 
damned  serious,  more  than  a  little  she  suspected  him  of 
malingering  in  order  to  keep  her  at  a  distance.  .  .  . 
What  a  jolly  tune  the  orchestra  was  playing !  Some  new 
piece  perhaps.  The  Dore  gargoyle  of  a  maitre  d'hotel 
came  up  to  her  obsequiously,  and  said : 

"  Mr.  Mathew  is  not  here  yet." 

"  I'm  alone  to-night,  and  I  don't  want  to  sit  in  the 
corner." 

Some  distance  away  in  the  middle  of  the  saloon  she 
saw  Mr.  Ysnaga  with  another  Jew,  but  she  would  take 
no  notice  of  him.  If  he  wanted  her,  let  him  come  for 
her.  .  .  .  She  was  just  moving  to  a  table  as  two 
Belgian  officers  vacated  it  when  Mr.  Ysnaga  came  over 
to  her. 

"  Hello,  Cora !  ...  All  dressed  up,  eh  ?  I'll  stand 
you  a  dinner  if  you  like.  You're  just  the  girl  I  want." 

Automatically  she  gave  him  a  sidelong  look  of 
innuendo. 

"  All  right,"  she  said.  "  You  know  I  hate  paying  for 
myself." 

"  It's  a  bad  sign  when  a  lady  does,"  said  Mr.  Ysnaga, 
with  his  oily  eyes  dancing  to  and  fro  in  the  Jewish  sub- 
stitute for  a  twinkle. 

They  reached  his  table,  and  Mr.  Ysnaga  said: 


PAYING  THE  PRICE  175 

"  You  must  let  me  introduce  you  to  my  friend,  Mr. 
Angel." 

They  had  finished  their  champagne,  but  they  ordered 
more,  so  that  Cora  knew  they  meant  business.  After 
Mr.  Angel  had  volunteered  the  information  that  if  the 
war  went  on  for  another  two  years  he  would  be  a  mil- 
lionaire, Mr.  Ysnaga,  who  had  ordered  turbot,  braised 
ham  and  creme  caramel  for  Cora,  came  to  the  point,  and 
said: 

"  Cora,  we  want  a  girl  with  a  back.  The  public's  got 
a  taste  for  backs  just  now,  and  you've  got  the  best 
back  in  London." 

"Thanks  awfully,"  said  Cora.  "But  what's  the 
game  ?  " 

"  We're  putting  money  into  a  show,  and  directly  I 
saw  you  just  now  I  knew  you  were  just  the  girl.  You've 
been  on  the  stage,  haven't  you  ?  " 

"  Once  or  twice  to  oblige  friends.  But  I  haven't  a 
voice,  and  I  can't  dance  for  nuts." 

"  That  doesn't  matter.  .  .  .  That  piece  the  band  was 
just  playing  was  out  of  a  show  of  mine.  It's  made  a  lot 
of  money.  .  .  .  There  was  a  back  in  that,  but  not  so 
good  as  yours.  .  .  .  You'd  get  good  money,  and  I'll 
pay  for  good  advertising.  I  was  afraid  you'd  gone  off 
on  the  marrying  lay." 

"Me?    Whatever  made  you  think  that?" 

"  Well,  you  weren't  keeping  that  youngster." 

"  I'm  not  here  to  talk  about  him,  Jose." 

She  began  to  calculate.  If  she  accepted  the  offer  it 
would  mean  that  she  would  have  something  to  fall  back 
on  if  she  did  not  realize  her  ambition  with  Trevor,  but, 
on  the  other  hand,  if  she  appeared  on  a  music-hall  stage 
and  exhibited  her  back  well  powdered  and  decorated 


I76  PINK  ROSES 


with  stage-diamonds,  her  plans  would  be  jeopardized, 
and  she  still  wanted  that  big  house  with  a  red  dining- 
room  and  a  greenhouse  outside  the  drawing-room. 

Mr.  Angel  admired  the  way  she  ate.  He  liked  a 
woman  who  enjoyed  her  food  and  understood  its  impor- 
tance. He  was  a  thick-set  humble  Jew  who  could  hardly 
speak  English.  He  was  pathetically  humble  and  child- 
ishly delighted  with  his  success. 

"  You  know,  my  tear,"  he  said,  "  de  Var  Office  owe 
me  seventy  tousand  pound,  and  I  go  to  the  Var  Office 
and  a  great  general  mit  a  red  collar  open  de  door  to 
me,  and  say:  'Come  in,  Mr.  Angel,'  and  he  gif  me  a 
cigar  and  talk  of  de  vedder,  and  I  say  I  must  haf  moneys 
as  credit  is  going  schmal,  and  he  goes  on  talking  of  de 
vedder  and  gifs  me  out  of  his  own  head  anudder  order 
for  twenty  tousand  pound.  ..." 

The  figures  were  as  intoxicating  as  wine  to  Cora, 
though  she  knew  there  was  no  hope  of  getting  a  penny 
more  than  she  was  actually  worth  out  of  these  Jews. 
Still,  to  be  dining  with  so  much  money  was  an  exhilara- 
tion. 

"  Are  you  going  to  take  my  back  on  trust  from  Mr. 
Ysnaga?"  asked  Cora,  as  the  wine  and  the  money  went 
to  her  head. 

"  I  take  nothing  on  trust,"  said  Mr.  Angel.  "  Not 
even  Government  orders.  De  Government  is  vonderful. 
It  has  pay  me  already  twice  for  vat  it  does  not  owe  me, 
but  vat  it  owe  me  it  pays  me  mit  talk  about  de  vedder." 

Mr.  Angel  had  an  electric  brougham,  which  was  wait- 
ing outside.  Cora,  Mr.  Ysnaga,  and  he  got  into  it,  and 
were  trundled  off  to  his  flat  in  Berkeley  Street,  where 
he  exhibited  the  treasures  he  had  acquired  since  the  war, 
a  pianola,  a  gramophone  with  a  solid  silver  horn,  a  set 


PAYING  THE  PRICE  177 

of  gold  plates  which  had  belonged  to  a  Duke,  jade,  china, 
a  Titian,  a  Vermes,  a  Degaer,  a  mass  of  things,  jewels, 
trinkets,  bric-a-brac,  which  his  infallible  nose  for  money 
had  picked  out  as  being  worth  far  more  than  he  had 
paid  for  them,  and  these  things  also  added  to  Cora's 
intoxication.  She  lay  back  in  a  big  chair  between  the 
two  Jews  as  they  wagged  their  heads  and  waved  their 
hands  and  talked  of  the  money  that  could  be  made  now 
that  the  public  had  to  take  what  they  could  get. 

"If  de  Government  owe  you  money,  den  you're  all 
right,  eh?"  said  Mr.  Angel,  with  a  wink  and  several 
nods  of  his  little  oiled  head.  "  I  tell  you  vat  I  done  for 
my  patriotism.  I  offered  a  prize  of  two  hundred 
pounds  for  de  first  Jewish  V.C.  in  de  Brkish  Navy. 
Hein?" 

So  they  talked  on,  and  at  last  Mr.  Ysnaga  slipped 
away,  leaving  Cora,  if  she  could,  to  win  Mr.  Angel's 
approval.  That  was  not  difficult.  He  liked  the  big 
greedy  Englishwoman,  and  he  thought  diamonds  would 
look  well  on  her.  He  had  begun  his  career  in  South 
Africa,  and  he  had  a  drawerful  of  little  stones  of  which 
he  gave  her  four  or  five  as  she  left  him  about  half -past 
four  in  the  morning.  He  said : 

"  Plenty  more.  .  .  .  You  come  again.  Hein  ?  You 
got  just  de  back  for  my  show." 

It  was  bigger  business  than  she  had  ever  done. 
Ysnaga  was  getting  on.  He  would  do  better  as  jackal 
to  Mr.  Angel  than  plunging  by  himself.  It  was  clever 
of  him  to  use  her  so  promptly  and  she  admired  him  for 
it.  ...  As  she  walked  home  she  thought  that  she 
would  make  herself  indispensable  to  Mr.  Angel  while 
the  war  lasted — might  it  go  on  for  ages! — and  then 
afterwards  she  would  take  Trevor  away  to  Monte  Carlo 


178  PINK  ROSES 


and  San  Sebastian  and  all  the  places  frequented  by  the 
big  people,  and  he  would  get  well  and  they  would  make 
money  and  get  married,  and  she  would  show  him  life. 
.  .  .  He  was  just  an  innocent  baby,  poor  lamb,  fret- 
ting about  his  dead  friends  and  the  war  and  all  that. 
If  people  got  killed  it  was  their  own  fault.  People  who 
were  clever  and  "  fly  "  never  got  hurt.  They  knew  what 
was  what — champagne  and  liqueurs,  and  music-hall 
shows,  and  diamond  studs  and  motor-cars.  They  got 
on  the  right  side  of  the  Government.  That  was  all  that 
was  necessary.  Having  done  that  they  could  do  as  they 
liked  and  go  as  they  pleased.  .  .  .  As  she  reached  her 
door  in  Shaftesbury  Avenue  Cora  took  out  the  stolies  the 
Jew  had  given  her.  They  shone  and  glittered  in  her 
hands. 

Estelle  came  down  to  open  the  door  grinning  with 
happiness  at  the  old  life  having  begun  again.  Cora  gave 
her  the  smallest  diamond,  and  said: 

"  There  you  are,  Estelle.  Don't  worry  me  about 
money  again." 

"  He's  been  talking  and  singing  like  mad,"  said 
Estelle,  "  but  he's  quiet  now,  and  I  think  he's  been 
asleep." 

"  Did  you  hear  what  he  said  ?  " 

"  Oh !  about  this  dam  war,  miss,  and  all  that." 

Cora  thought  savagely: 

"  I'll  make  money  and  show  him  what  the  war's  good 
for.  Little  fool !  " 

But  directly  she  entered  his  flat  her  consuming  love 
for  him  returned,  and  she  reeled  under  the  knowledge 
of  what  she  had  done.  What  a  fool  she  had  been !  She 
could  easily  have  got  money  from  the  Bank  if  she  had 
only  stopped  to  think  about  it;  but  Trevor  was  con- 


PAYING  THE  PRICE  179 

tinually  dragging  her  out  of  her  depth,  and  then  she 
did  not  know  what  she  was  doing. 

He  was  certainly  looking  better,  and  his  eyes  stared  at 
her  with  a  puzzled  expression.  She  leaned  over  him  and 
said: 

"  It's  me.    It's  your  Cora.    Don't  you  know  me?  " 

He  said  "  Oh  yes." 

In  a  series  of  sharp  shocks  his  memory  of  her  returned 
and  he  was  overpowered  with  the  scent  of  pink  roses, 
loose  voluptuous  blossoms  that  seemed  to  fill  the  room 
and  shake  down  their  scent  and  their  dew  upon  him, 
and  in  his  ears  rang  the  sound  of  the  orchestra  at  the 
Cafe  Claribel  playing  "  Over  There,"  and  "  While  the 
Great  Big  World  goes  Turning  Round."  Through  the 
roses  grinned  from  various  directions  the  same  face, 
Estelle,  the  coloured  maid,  with  her  eyes  flashing  a  sup- 
pressed hatred  of  him,  and  demanding  money  .  .  . 
money  .  .  .  money.  .  .  .  And  there  was  Mr.  Ysnaga 
with  his  eyes  darting  to  and  fro,  and  his  tongue  busy 
with  his  teeth. 

"  What  have  I  to  do  with  all  these  people?  "  thought 
Trevor,  and  at  once  he  was  answered  by  Cora  kissing 
his  lips,  his  eyes,  his  neck,  and  shedding  tears  upon  his 
cheeks.  .  .  .  Oh  yes,  Cora  Dinmont !  And  it  was  war- 
time, and  things  were  somehow  different. 

As  he  realized  this  he  became  conscious  of  a  sudden 
rush  of  health  which  intoxicated  him,  and  he  said 
childishly : 

"  I'm  better  now." 

"  Oh !  you've  been  so  ill,  my  dear.  I  don't  know 
what's  been  the  matter  with  you,  and  the  doctor  doesn't 
know,  but  you've  been  terribly  ill." 

"  Are  there  any  letters  ?  " 


i So  PINK  ROSES 


"  Only  a  few,"  she  said.  "  There  was  some  one  came 
from  the  office  to  ask  how  you  were,  but  that  is  all. 
.  .  .  I've  been  looking  after  you." 

"  Is  the  war  still  on  ?  " 

He  laughed  at  himself  as  he  asked  this  question.  Of 
course  it  was  still  "on,"  and  would  be  "on"  even  if  it 
stopped  to-morrow.  It  would  be  in  the  minds  of  men 
for  generations,  and  only  an  imbecile  could  think  of  it 
in  terms  of  defeat  or  victory  or  attempt  to  evade  facing 
it  by  waving  flags  and  howling  national  hymns.  Per- 
haps the  people  who  were  engaged  in  it  could  now  realize 
these  truths.  .  .  .  He  looked  quizzically  up  at  Cora. 
She  was  not  beautiful  or  good  or  even  charming,  but 
she  had  made  life  bearable  for  him  and  he  owed  her 
more  than  he  could  ever  repay.  Her  costume,  her  hat, 
offended  him,  though  he  had  no  idea  what  time  it 
was. 

"  Why  are  you  dressed  like  that  ?  "  he  asked. 

"Oh!  I  been  out." 

"What  time  is  it?" 

She  was  quick  enough  to  lie. 

"  It's  about  half-past  eleven,  Boy.  I  been  to  a  cinema 
to  cheer  myself  up.  It's  bad  weather,  and  there's  been 
a  big  explosion  at  a  munitions  factory." 

She  gave  him  his  medicine  and  some  milk,  and  even 
the  unpleasant  taste  of  the  tonic  was  good. 

"Better?"  she  said. 

"  Oh  yes.    I'm  going  to  enjoy  myself." 

She  flung  her  whole  weight  on  him  and  hugged  him 
until  he  was  nearly  suffocated,  but  this  again  stirred  his 
common  sense  until  he  wanted  to  laugh  until  he  cried. 
There  seemed  to  be  so  much  of  her,  and  it  was  so  like 
her  to  hurl  her  body  at  him  when  he  wanted  her  mind, 


PAYING  THE  PRICE  181 

her  good-tempered  bland  and  innocent  outlook  on 
life.  .  .  . 

"  I've  been  sleeping  at  the  foot  of  your  bed,"  she  said 
in  a  wheedling  tone.  "  Now  that  you're  better  I  must 
take  you  away.  Brighton's  the  best." 

After  more  kisses,  sighs,  sobs,  hearings  and  strokings 
she  went  reluctantly  away  to  her  own  flat  and  Trevor 
lay  awake  enjoying  the  joke  of  his  existence.  Only  an 
hour  or  so  after  she  had  gone  the  post  arrived  and 
slipped  some  letters  through  his  door.  He  got  out  of 
bed  and  stood  in  the  passage  listening  to  the  clatter  of 
the  milk  being  sent  up  in  the  lift  at  the  back  of  the 
building.  .  .  .  Why,  it  was  morning!  What  had  she 
been  doing?  Why  was  she  dressed  up  in  that  fashion? 
Why  had  she  lied  to  him  ?  And  what  had  she  done  with 
Sydney?  .  .  .  He  went  through  the  flat  calling  the 
dog,  but  there  was  no  trace  of  him  except  ancient  marks 
on  the  carpet.  .  .  .  Perhaps  she  had  done  away  with 
him.  But  the  dog  had  heard  his  master  moving  about, 
and  was  barking  and  scratching  at  the  door  of  Cora's 
flat.  At  last  Trevor  heard  him,  and  crossed  the  landing 
to  release  him.  On  the  mat  he  saw  something  glittering, 
stopped  and  picked  up  a  small  diamond.  He  held  it  in 
the  palm  of  his  hand  and  stood  looking  distastefully  at 
Cora's  door,  then  across  at  his  own,  pondering  the  ques- 
tion whether  she  had  dropped  it  or  whether  it  had  been 
lost  by  some  one,  like  Ysnaga,  who  had  visited  her. 
Sydney,  smelling  his  master  on  the  other  side  of  the 
door,  was  nearly  frantic  and  was  barking  in  an  ecstatic 
frenzy.  An  angry  voice  from  upstairs  called  down : 

"  Can't  you  strangle  that  damned  dog  of  yours?" 

Just  as  Trevor  put  the  key  into  the  lock  Cora  opened 
the  door  and  Sydney  rushed  out. 


1 82  PINK  ROSES 


"  I  heard  the  dog,"  said  Trevor. 

"  I  kept  him  here  while  you  were  ill." 

He  held  out  the  diamond. 

"  I  found  this  on  your  mat,"  he  said. 

"  Oh  yes.  I've  been  looking  for  it  everywhere.  They 
— I — had  them  by  me,  and  I  took  them  out  to  sell  them. 
You  get  a  good  price  nowadays  because  of  the  munition 
workers.  ...  I  thought  you'd  have  been  asleep." 

"It  is  morning,"  said  Trevor;  and  the  words  had  for 
him  far  more  than  their  trivial  sense.  It  was  indeed 
morning  for  him,  a  new  beginning  of  a  new  life  brim- 
ming over  with  possibilities,  a  life  in  which  he  had 
broken  away  from  the  old  illusions  which  had  destroyed 
so  much,  and  had  not  yet  formed  any  new  ones  into 
which  to  recede  from  life's  demands.  .  .  .Life  could 
not  demand  too  much  of  him,  nor  could  he  demand  too 
much  of  life,  because  it  was  morning  and  he  had  paid 
the  price. 

He  did  not  mind  Cora's  having  lied  to  him.  He  was 
only  perturbed  because  she  had  had  to  sell  her  jewels, 
and  he  blamed  himself  for  not  having  made  any  financial 
arrangements  with  her.  Hitherto  when  she  had  wanted 
money  she  had  asked  for  it,  and  he  had  given  it  to  her 
exactly  as  if  he  were  her  husband.  They  stood  staring 
at  each  other,  groping  for  each  other's  thoughts,  and  at 
last  she  said: 

"  You  oughtn't  to  be  up,  you  know." 

"  Oh  yes,"  he  answered.  "  I'm  going  to  get  up  for 
breakfast.  I'm  all  right.  I'm  all  right." 

"Are  you!"  she  said  roughly.  "Well,  I'm  tired. 
I'm  going  to  have  a  good  sleep.  .  .  .  Estelle  can  give 
you  your  breakfast  in  bed."  She  turned  and  went  away. 

"  Thanks.   .    .    .   Come  along,  Sydney." 


PAYING  THE  PRICE  183 

As  he  closed  the  door  of  his  own  flat  he  said: 

"  Sydney,  what's  she  so  cross  about?" 

And  Sydney  raised  himself  on  his  hind  legs  and 
clawed  at  his  master's  pyjamas  to  make  him  stoop  and 
scratch  his  head. 


XIV 
BREAKFAST  IN  BED 

THERE  were  two  letters  for  Trevor  that  morning,  one 
from  his  mother,  very  anxious  at  not  having  heard  from 
him,  deploring  the  air-raids  and  applauding  the  great 
effort  made  by  the  women  of  England,  opinions  and 
emotions  culled  direct  from  the  newspapers,  so  that 
Trevor  was  half-amused,  half -irritated  by  their  inepti- 
tude. Extraordinary  how  the  old  people  struggled  in 
vain  to  think  and  feel  the  right  thing,  and  how  remote 
they  were  from  striking  the  right  note !  They  could  not 
grasp  what  was  happening  or  what  had  happened.  Life 
had  been  too  easy  for  them  and  tragedy  was  past  their 
comprehension.  .  .  .  Dear  old  mother!  Bloodthirsty 
as  a  Bedouin,  her  letters  with  all  her  endearments  and 
affectionate  thoughts  were  a  series  of  Dervish  dances, 
culled  from  the  newspaper.  It  was  not  she  who  felt 
these  terrible  things,  but  it  was  she  who  wanted  to  feel 
them,  the  more  so  as  her  own  boy  had  been  spared. 
.  .  .  Trevor  could  see  her  in  her  drawing-room  trying 
to  placate  and  outdo  the  other  mothers.  How  pathetic! 
So  utterly  foreign  to  them,  so  completely  disconnected 
with  the  rest  of  their  lives!  It  used  to  hurt  him  in  the 
days  of  his  grief  to  have  to  read  thoughts  so  inadequate, 
but  now  he  was  filled  with  a  fond  indulgence.  The  old 
people,  after  all,  were  only  somehow  not  quite  grown-up. 
They  did  not  understand,  that  was  all.  They  were  try- 

184 


BREAKFAST  IN  BED  185 

ing  to  do  the  right  thing  by  the  young  people,  in  a  way 
to  make  amends  to  them.  .  .  .  Thinking  so,  Trevor 
was  filled  with  a  rush  of  affection  for  his  mother,  and 
he  patted  her  letter  as  it  lay  on  his  knee  and  smiled  at 
it.  It  did  not  matter  now  that  she  could  not  understand. 
He  could  understand  her,  and  that  was  enough. 

His  other  letter  was  from  Cherryman,  announcing 
that  already  ten  thousand  copies  of  Hardman's  poems 
had  been  sold,  and  asking  Trevor  if  he  had  any  other 
manuscripts  or  letters,  as  another  volume  would  be  called 
for.  So  exquisite  was  Trevor's  mood  that  he  could  be 
indulgent  even  with  Cherryman.  After  all,  the  man  was 
only  a  happy  fool  who  adored  success,  s<5  happy  that 
nothing,  not  even  a  world-calamity,  could  upset  him. 
The  war  to  him  was  splendid  because  it  made  his  influ- 
ential friends  more  powerful,  and  focused  attention  on 
them,  and  dulce  est  pro  patria  mori.  Cherryman  was  a 
cultured  gentleman  for  whom  life  had  always  been,  al- 
ways would  be,  easy.  He  was  so  soft  that  no  one  could 
be  harsh  with  him,  or  abrupt:  or  say  what  he  really 
thought,  for  Cherryman  was  a  very  bee  to  sip  the  honey 
from  the  flower  of  popular  opinion  and  hoard  it  against 
wintry  weather  when  it  should  come,  if  ever.  Though 
of  course  it  never  did  and  never  would  come.  As  soon 
as  it  could  discreetly  be  done  Cherryman  would  enter 
once  more  upon  the  round  of  dinner-parties,  theatres, 
suppers,  dances,  week-end  visits.  .  .  .  Sure  enough, 
over  the  page  there  was  a  postscript :  "  I  am  having  a 
few  friends  from  the  various  Ministries  to  dinner  next 
week,  Wednesday.  One  must  do  something  to  keep 
ourselves  cheerful.  Do  come.  Love." 

Trevor  grinned.  The  same  old  Cherryman!  What 
would  he  think  if  he  saw  Hardman's  letters  about  him? 


186  PINK  ROSES 


There  had  been  no  more  scathing  critic  of  the  old  order 
than  Hardman. 

Well,  of  that  old  order  these  two  letters  represented 
the  best  of  what  was  left,  and  here  was  Trevor  entering 
upon  the  new  world  through  the  lady  of  the  pink  roses, 
out  of  compliment  to  whom  he  had  a  paper  on  his  wall 
of  French  grey  with  a  frieze  of  pink  roses. 

Estelle  brought  his  breakfast. 

"  Good  morning,  m'sieu,"  she  said,  with  her  evil  grin. 
"  I'm  glad  yo'  better." 

"  Wonderfully  better,"  replied  Trevor.  "  I  can't  be- 
lieve that  I've  been  ill.  .  .  .  Is  your  mistress  asleep?  " 

"No  ..."  Estelle  grinned.  "She  looking  at  her 
back,  m'sieu." 

"What?" 

"  Trying  on,"  explained  Estelle. 

"What?   .    .    .   New  clothes?" 

"  Not  'xactly  clothes,  m'sieu." 

Estelle  was  mysterious  and  happy.  She  gave  him  a 
rather  impertinent  nod  and  left  him,  to  return  in  a 
moment  with  the  morning  papers.  He  ate  a  hearty 
breakfast  and  read  these  curious  sheets  which  raved 
about  the  war  in  the  terms  of  a  generation  ago.  One 
paper  took  its  note  from  Disraeli,  another  from  Glad- 
stone, another  from  Bright,  and  he  remembered  a  dis- 
cussion with  his  friends  in  his  old  rooms  in  which  they 
had  come  to  the  conclusion,  since  proved  only  too  fully, 
that  there  had  been  no  thought  in  England  since  the 
Education  Act.  Politicians  had  left  it  to  the  people,  the 
people  to  the  politicians,  until  there  was  complete  stag- 
nation, the  ideal  condition  for  the  middle-classes.  These 
newspapers  were  just  delightfully  irrelevant,  utterly 
ignorant  of  and  indifferent  to  what  was  really  happening 


BREAKFAST  IN  BED  187 

in  Europe,  impervious  to  any  idea,  blissfully  unconscious 
of  any  social  development  that  might  be,  and  surely  was. 
taking  place.  They  were  "  getting  on  with  the  war," 
and  they  were  incapable  of  realizing  that  the  war  might 
be  connected  vitally  with  other  human  activities.  The 
efforts  of  those  who  controlled  them  were  directed 
wholly  to  keeping  their  papers  up  to  the  pitch  of  vio- 
lence of  the  simple  news  of  a  great  offensive.  They 
had  begun  to  discuss  everything  in  the  terms  of  military 
operations. 

The  doctor  arrived. 

"  Ah !  bon,  bon.  C'est  bien,"  he  said,  seeing  Trevor 
sitting  up  and  chuckling  over  newspapers.  "  You  are 
better,  eh?" 

"  Wonderfully  better,"  replied  Trevor.  "  I'm  enjoy- 
ing myself.  I  haven't  done  that  for  two  years." 

"  Ah !  You  should  not  take  things  so  hard.  But  for 
you  English  the  war  is  bad  form.  You  do  not  under- 
stand it  that  one  should  take  trouble  over  anything  so 
bestial.  You  want  it  be  like  the  football,  but  the  Ger- 
mans do  not  play  the  football." 

"  Is  that  what  the  French  think  of  us?  "  said  Trevor. 

"  For  the  French  it  is  serious.  Yes.  It  must  go  on 
until  the  Germans  are  beaten.  Yes.  Not  only  because 
we  hate  the  Germans,  but  because  we  must  kill  the  fear 
of  the  militarism  before  we  can  get  on  with  serious 
things.  .  .  .  Till  then  we  must  suffer  disgusting  things 
and  fools  and  chauvinists." 

"And  newspapers?"  asked  Trevor. 

"  Ah !  They  are  bad,  but  what  would  you  ?  It  would 
not  do  for  the  English  to  know  the  truth.  They  are  so 
innocent.  They  would  think  us  all  scoundrels.  They 
would  never  understand  that  in  Europe  there  is  happen- 


i88  PINK  ROSES 


ing  something  serious,  much  more  serious  than  war. 
They  will  not  belie\e  it  because  one  cannot  define  it. 
It  is  defining  itself.  When  it  is  definite  they  will  believe 
it  and  give  it  a  legal  sanction,  but  by  that  time  something 
else  will  have  begun  to  arrive  in  Europe.  In  England 
you  do  not  live.  Although  life  here  is  charming,  so  nice, 
so  nice  with  everybody  trying  to  be  good,  everybody 
taking  a  commission,  everybody  protecting  and  pro- 
tected. When  a  Frenchman  goes  into  the  army  he  is 
poilu,  a  dirty  fellow,  he  feels  and  knows  that  he  is 
dirty,  but  when  an  Englishman  goes  into  the  Army  he 
is  St.  George.  Ah!  I  love  it." 

He  was  a  little  alert  man  with  inquisitive  eyebrows 
and  short-sighted  eyes  peering  through  narrow  spec- 
tacles. He  talked  very  quickly  and  with  many  misplaced 
accents,  so  that  much  of  what  he  said  escaped  Trevor's 
ears. 

"  I  have  thought  often  of  your  case,"  he  said.  "  It  is 
— you  will  forgive  me  an  excess  of  innocence — a  refusal 
to  believe  that  things  are  as  they  are.  A  Frenchman  in 
that  condition  would  find  an  idea.  He  would  fight  for 
it,  die  for  it,  go  to  prison  for  it,  murder  Poincare  and 
Clemenceau  for  it,  but  here  there  is  no  idea  to  find. 
There  is  nothing  to  make  you  murder  Asquith  and 
Lloyd  George.  Why  should  you?  They  are  only  men. 
They  have  no  idea  either,  and  men  are  good-natured 
animals.  They  only  want  to  kill  ideas.* 

"  That's  very  interesting,"  said  Trevor.  "  But  I  do 
accept  things  as  they  are." 

"  Pardon,"  said  the  doctor,  with  a  smile.  "  You  are 
English.  Only  action  could  satisfy,  and  to  act  it  is  nec- 
essary for  you  to  have  illusions.  .  .  .  Moi,  je  suis 
gynecologue.  .  .  .  Illusions  are  impossible  for  me. 


BREAKFAST  IN  BED  189 

.  .  .  Ideas  disgust  me.  That  is  why  I  too  am  not  in 
the  war.  How?  I  attended  Belgian  refugees.  That 
was  my  contribution  to  the  calamity.  What  is  yours?" 

Trevor  looked  round  his  room.  That  was  his  contri- 
bution, and  he  was  very  satisfied  with  it.  He  had  moved 
out  of  the  stagnation  not  very  far,  but  far  enough  to  be 
able  to  look  at  life  from  a  new  angle.  He  tried  to 
explain  this  to  the  little  doctor,  who  chuckled  and  said: 

"  Ah !  vous  etes  vraiment  patriote.  It  is  precisely 
what  you  need  in  England,  but  it  would  go  hard  with 
you  if  you  tried  to  explain  that  to  a  Tribunal.  Ah!  A 
Tribunal !  And  that,  too,  is  adorably  English.  In  other 
countries  if  you  have  conscription  you  have  conscrip- 
tion, but  here  as  for  once  in  a  way  you  cannot  call  it  by 
another  name,  you  invent  exceptions  and  make  them  a 
disgrace.  Conscription  is  a  horrible  thing,  yes.  But 
here  you  make  it  good  form.  Ha!  So  you  look  at  life 
from  a  new  angle  and  fall  out  of  it.  Bonne  chance! 
...  I  was  afraid  you  had  the  idea  to  see  life  and 
had  seen  too  much  for  your  innocence.  ..." 

Trevor  chuckled.  "  Not  yet.  How  much  do  I  owe 
you?" 

"  Ah !  Nothing,  nothing.  The  pleasure  has  been 
mine  to  meet  an  Englishman  who  can  laugh  at  his  news- 
papers and  not  be  angry  with  them.  I  tell  you,  when 
I  first  came  to  England  I  was  amazed.  I  read  first  of  a 
breach  of  promise.  Breach  of  promise!  What  is  that? 
...  I  bought  every  paper  to  understand,  and  I  did 
not.  MonDieu!  I  did  not  understand  a  word  of  it.  Of 
what,  then,  are  Englishwomen  made?  That  is  the  mys- 
tery. I  am  a  doctor,  and  I  cannot  find  the  clue.  .  .  . 
They  are  like  the  British  Constitution,  they  would  drive 
any  other  nation  mad,  but  they  suit  the  English,  and 


IQO  PINK  ROSES 


there  is  no  more  to  be  said.  They  are  attractive,  yes, 
but  like  flowers  or  dogs.  Us  n'ont  pas  le  parfum  de  la 
femme,  le  charme  epanoui  de  la  Femme." 

"  Would  you  mind  saying  that  in  English  ? "  asked 
Trevor. 

"  In  English  it  cannot  be  said.  It  means  something 
which  has  gone,  or  which  you  have  lost,  or  which  you 

have  never  had,  or But  it  is  impossible  to  explain. 

A  docility,  a  discipline.  I  have  the  idea  that  you  have 
paid  a  very  heavy  price  for  your  wealth,  but  as  you  have 
paid  cheerfully  that  too  is  good.  What  you  cannot  do 
by  intelligence  perhaps  you  can  do  better  by  sentiment. 
.  .  .  Bonne  chance,  mon  ami." 

"  Good  luck,"  said  Trevor.  "  Come  again.  .  .  . 
Just  what  I  need,  to  talk  things  over  with  an  outsider. 
The  English  point  of  view  seems  to  have  disappeared, 
and  I  don't  know  where  I  am.  I  don't  think  we  ever 
imagined  that  other  people  thought  about  us  at  all  ex- 
cept perhaps  with  envy." 

"  Ah  yes,"  replied  the  doctor.  "  That  is  it.  We  envy 
you.  You  are  so  happy.  You  can  imagine  nothing 
worse  than  not  being  happy." 

Trevor  thought  with  a  pang :  "  Was  that  all  that  was 
worrying  me  ?  Was  I  simply  aching  to  be  happy  ?  " 

There  was  enough  truth  in  that  to  make  him  uncom- 
fortable. He  thought  of  Cora,  and  it  seemed  to  him  that 
he  had  been  moved  by  her  out  of  his  lethargy  because 
she  was  gay  and  happy  and  lived  in  the  Cafe  Claribel 
with  its  brilliant  lights,  its  many  mirrors,  and  its  inso- 
lently bright  music  as  in  her  natural  element.  If  so  he 
had  not — quite — been  playing  the  game. 

The  little  doctor,  though  he  did  not  know  the  cause 
of  it,  laughed  at  his  discomfiture. 


BREAKFAST  IN  BED  191 

"  Never  mind,"  he  said.  "  You  will  have  your  social 
revolution  without  horror,  so  nice,  so  nice  and  gentle- 
manly. You  will  simply  teach  the  proletariat  to  be 
gentlemanly,  and  the  class  war,  like  everything  else  un- 
pleasant, will  melt  away  under  your  hands." 

That  was  so  far  from  Trevor's  thoughts  that  he  could 
make  no  effort  to  follow  it.  The  doctor  put  this  down 
to  English  ignorance,  and  he  added: 

"  Mais  en  Angleterre  vous  n'etes  pas  instruit.  Votre 
theorie  est  deplorable,  mais  votre  pratique — passe.  II  n'y 
a  pas  de  quoi ." 

Trevor,  like  a  good  Englishman,  was  beginning  to 
regard  the  Frenchman  as  a  chattering  monkey.  He  had 
been  discomfited  and  did  not  like  it,  and  fell  back  on 
traditional  contempt.  He  knew  instinctively  that  what 
at  bottom  amused  the  doctor  was  himself  taking  his  ad- 
venture with  Cora  seriously.  But  what  could  he  do! 
He  was  neither  a  commercial  Englishman,  nor  yet  an 
emancipated  and  cynical  Continental.  It  had  been  a  seri- 
ous matter,  very  serious,  and  for  all  he  knew,  would  con- 
tinue to  be  so. 

The  doctor's  expression  as  he  polished  his  hat  with  his 
coat-sleeve  showed  pity,  amazement,  indulgence,  admira- 
tion, envy,  and  an  almost  tearful  contempt.  The  doctor 
was  thinking,  and  Trevor  knew  that  he  was  thinking : 

"  Que  fait-il  done  dans  cette  galere?" 

And  as  that  was  the  question  that  had  begun  to  twinge 
in  Trevor's  young  and  ardent  and  fortunately  irregular 
heart,  he  was  annoyed  that  any  one  should  know  it.  But 
then,  foreigners  are  so  disconcerting,  so  uncomfortably 
realistic. 

"  Wait  a  moment ! "  he  said,  as  the  doctor  was  going. 
"  Do  you  mind  handing  me  that  book  ?  " 


I92  PINK  ROSES 


He  pointed  to  Hardman's  poems,  which  lay  on  his 
dressing-table.  The  doctor  took  up  the  book. 

"Ah!  ga,"  he  said.  "I  have  read  the  reviews.  I 
know.  That  is  all  the  English  have  to  say  about  it.  A 
romance,  an  adventure,  the  Croisade — do  you  say  Cru- 
sade?— the  Crusade  of  the  Innocents.  We  have  our 
Barbusse." 

He  shrugged  the  whole  of  his  body. 

"  It  is  what  I  say.  You  are  happy,  you  English.  You 
simply  do  not  want  to  know.  But  what  will  you  do  in 
a  world  that  must  know  or  perish?  " 

Beneath  the  little  doctor's  banter  there  was  a  smoulder- 
ing passion  which  almost  burst  into  flame  as  he  said 
these  words.  He  rather  frightened  Trevor  because  his 
voice  became  suddenly  impersonal.  He  was  no  longer  a 
Frenchman,  hardly  even  a  human  being,  but  simply  a 
mind  that  must  know,  and  Trevor  was  violently  excited. 
This  was  the  new  thing.  This  was  the  power  behind 
the  upheaval,  the  power  against  which  all  the  stupid  peo- 
ple in  all  the  countries  were  fighting,  the  power  that  was 
governing  and  would  govern  the  world. 

"  I  will  know,"  he  said.    "  I  will  know." 

It  was  a  strange  moment,  and  the  doctor  liked  it  no 
more  than  he.  One  does  not  admit  the  truth  when  life 
is  dominated  by  illusions.  It  is  somehow  a  betrayal. 
Time  ripens  slowly  for  truth,  and  those  who  are  before 
their  time  must  live  in  silence.  To  return  to  normal  con- 
sciousness Trevor  said: 

"  The  book  is  dedicated  to  me.     He  was  my  friend." 

"  I  commiserate  you,"  said  the  doctor.  "  You  will 
console  yourself." 

"  Come  again." 

"  Avec  plaisir.    I  have  so  much  to  do  with  the  bodies 


BREAKFAST  IN  BED  193 

of    women    that    I    forget   sometimes    that    men   have 
minds." 

"  Is  your  practice  all ?  " 

"  Yes.  Je  suis  cynique.  J'attende  la  verite.  Elle  ne 
vient  pas  et  il  faut  vivre.  I  will  gladly  come  again  if 
only  to  see  an  Englishman  suffer  in  his  mind." 

This  time  he  really  went,  and  Trevor  was  left  to  his 
breakfast,  the  newspapers,  and  Sydney,  whom  he  ad- 
dressed at  length: 

"  I  wonder  if  it  is  the  same  with  English  dogs,  Syd- 
ney. Must  you  have  everything  definite?  I  think  you 
must.  You  must  have  me  to  be  definitely  your  master. 
I'm  sure  a  French  dog  would  be  more  detached  and  just 
a  little  critical.  .  .  .  Queer.  All  the  time  one  is  think- 
ing things  that  one  never  says  until  everybody  is  think- 
ing them,  and  then  they  are  not  worth  saying,  and  we 
listen  in  amazement  to  people  who  can  explain  them- 
selves. But  after  all  they  are  only  chattering,  and  life 
is  to  be  lived.  Life  doesn't  wait  until  we  are  ready  for 
it.  After  all,  practical  knowledge  is  something.  At  any* 
rate  one  can't  argue  about  it.  I  shouldn't  be  here  now 
if  I  had  waited  until  I  had  found  an  exact  reason  for 
it.  You  wouldn't  be  here  if  I  had  stopped  to  find  out 
if  I  really  wanted  a  dog.  I  didn't,  but  I  do  now." 

Sydney  wagged  his  tail  and  looked  imploringly  at  the 
milk-jug.  Trevor  poured  him  out  a  saucerful  and  held 
it  while  Sydney  gulped  it  down. 

"  And  now,"  said  Trevor,  "  we  have  to  go  out  into 
the  world  to  find  out  what  it  is  really  like — Mr.  Hobday, 
Mr.  Barnes,  Mr.  Ysnaga,  my  mother,  my  father,  Estelle, 
Cora,  Cherryman — but  there  is  no  doubt  about  Cherry- 
man.  I  would  as  soon  doubt  the  Lord  Mayor.  .  .  . 
It  would  be  fun  to  know  what  the  English  are  really  up 


194 


PINK  ROSES 


to.  That  is  what  the  Germans  wanted  to  know.  Was 
macht  England?" 

Sydney  barked. 

"  You  don't  like  the  language  ?  Well,  I  won't  do  it 
again  ..." 

Cora  came  in.  She  was  dressed  in  a  loose  Japanese 
mantle. 

"  I  do  hate  you  having  that  beastly  dog  on  the  bed." 

Her  appearance  gave  Trevor  an  intense  pleasure.  She 
was  so  robust  and  healthy,  so  completely  without  self- 
consciousness. 

"  You  look  quite  well,  darling,"  she  said.  "  I  want 
you  to  tell  me  what  you  think  of  my  back." 

She  had  been  admiring  it  all  the  morning,  and  turning 
over  in  her  mind  what  line  she  had  better  take  with  him. 
He  was  so  odd  that  there  was  no  telling  whether  he 
really  cared  for  her  or  not,  and  she  had  decided  to  put 
him  to  the  test  by  telling  him  of  her  offer  to  go  on  the 
stage. 

She  threw  off  her  mantle  and  stood  in  her  silk  petti- 
coat with  her  back  completely  exposed  from  below  the 
waist  upwards.  It  was  certainly  a  magnificent  back  with 
superb  lines  on  either  side  of  the  spine  and  shadows 
made  by  the  softly  clad  muscles  under  the  shoulders. 
She  moved  her  arms,  as  she  had  seen  dancers  do,  to 
make  play  with  her  muscles,  and  Trevor  was  entranced. 

"  You  certainly  are  beautifully  made,"  he  said. 

"  Aren't  I  ?    I've  had  an  offer  to  go  on  the  stage." 

He  was  annoyed.  That  was  what  she  wanted.  As 
the  first  shadow  passed  across  his  face  she  flew  across  to 
him. 

"  I  won't,  if  it  makes  my  darling  cross." 

Sydney  snarled  at  her. 


BREAKFAST  IN  BED  195 

"  Get  away,  you  little  brute,"  and  with  one  sweep  of 
her  arm  she  flung  the  dog  into  the  corner,  where  he  lay 
yelping. 

"  I'm  not  cross,"  he  said.  "  If  you  want  to  go.  ... 
But  I  didn't  know  you  had  any  talent.  I  shouldn't  have 
suspected.  ..." 

"  It  was  only  Jose  Ysnaga,"  she  said.  "  I  saw  him 
while  you  were  ill.  He's  got  a  show  coming  on,  him  and 
another  Jew.  They're  making  heaps  of  money,  and  they 
want  more.  They  love  the  theatre,  Jews." 

Trevor  thought: 

"  It  is  quite  right.  It  is  what  she  should  do.  I  ought 
not  to  interfere  with  her  in  any  way." 

(He  had  been  brought  up  in  Liberal  traditions.) 

"  It's  only  the  money,"  she  said.  "  And  it  might  be 
a  bit  of  fun.  But  of  course  you  mightn't  like  me  to 
show  my  back  with  diamonds  on  it,  and  I  daresay  one 
leg  with  a  diamond  buckle  on  it.  That's  what  they  do 
in  shows." 

"  I  have  a  lot  to  learn,"  thought  Trevor,  whose 
memory  of  the  lighter  stage  was  clouded  and  still  roseate 
from  the  champagne  he  had  drunk  to  make  it  bearable. 
"  Is  that  all,"  he  said  aloud,  unable  to  conceal  the  bored 
disgust  that  rose  in  him. 

"  Well,  they  talked  as  though  it  was  the  chief  thing," 
she  said. 

"  Oh !  so  you've  been  talking  it  over." 

She  thought  he  was  jealous,  and  so  he  was,  though 
very  faintly. 

"  I  don't  want  ever  to  do  anything  you  don't  like.  I 
don't  want  anything  but  you.  .  .  .  But  if  I  did  that 
then  you  wouldn't  have  to  go  to  your  office.  Ftl  soon  be 
making  lots  of  money.  I'm  very  good  at  that,  and  a 


ig6  PINK  ROSES 


woman  can  do  what  she  likes  with  the  stage  just  now. 
There's  heaps  of  money  in  it,  and  Ysnaga  says  you  can't 
keep  the  public  out.  He  knows  what  he's  talking  about, 
does  Ysnaga,  though  he's  reckless." 

"  I  don't  like  Ysnaga,"  said  Trevor,  striving  in  vain 
to  recover  the  delightful  intellectual  detachment  of  his 
first  moments  of  recovery.  There  was  too  much  of  Cora 
to  allow  of  that,  and  she  had  changed.  He  was  intrigued 
to  find  out  the  nature  of  it.  Somehow  she  was  not  so 
oppressively  enamoured  and  he  liked  her  better.  She 
was  franker,  gayer,  more  herself,  less  vainly  struggling 
to  be  something  which  she  imagined  he  would  like  her 
to  be. 

"  You  know,  Cora,"  he  said,  "  we  can't  go  back  to 
the  life  we  were  living — the  Cafe  Claribel,  a  cinema,  an 
occasional  theatre,  going  to  bed  late  and  getting  up  later, 
quarrelling  and  making  it  up." 

"Ooh!  I  hate  quarrelling  with  you,"  she  said.  "It 
used  to  tear  my  heart  out.  You're  so  nice,  you're  so 
young.  I'd  like  to  eat  you,  and  then  do  what  I  damn 
well  pleased." 

"  Well— do,"  he  said. 

"Eat  you?" 

"  No.    What  you  damn  well  please." 

"And  afterwards?" 

"  Time  enough  to  think  of  that." 

"  You're  not  going  to  slip  off  home?  "  she  asked,  in  a 
fury  of  suspicion. 

"  No.  .  .  .  No.  .  .  .  I'm  too  happy.  ...  I  don't 
think  I  could  bear  home  just  now.  It  has  become  so  old- 
fashioned — the  idea  of  it,  I  mean." 

"  My  home's  with  you,"  she  said,  kissing  him.  "  I've 
always  thought  of  home  when  I'm  with  you.  I  often 


BREAKFAST  IN  BED  197 

see  you  and  me  sitting  in  a  big  dining-room  with  a  nice 
maid  laying  the  plates  on  a  long  dining-table.  You're 
older,  of  course,  and  I've  forgotten  all  about  London, 
and  we're  just  happy.  Of  course,  the  war  is  over,  and 
all  that  ..." 

Her  voice  was  so  sentimental  that  Trevor,  feeling  sure 
that  she  was  going  to  talk  about  a  little  voice  crymg 
upstairs,  cut  her  short  with : 

"  One  doesn't  make  plans  nowadays,  Cora.  One 
waits  for  something  to  turn  up  and  decide — anything 
that  has  to  be  decided." 

"We'll  travel,  then?" 

"  They  won't  let  us  travel  for  years.  When  they  have 
forgotten  about  German  spies  they  will  be  looking  out 
for  anarchists." 

Disappointed  at  her  failure  to  draw  him  into  the 
delightful  game  of  making  plans,  she  said: 

"Ooh!  well,  you're  better.  That's  the  main  thing. 
And  we're  happy  as  we  are.  Lots  of  girls  'd  give  their 
eyes  to  be  me.  Did  the  doctor  say  you  could  get  up?" 

"  We  didn't  discuss  that,"  said  Trevor.  "  He  simply 
said  I  was  well.  .  .  .  And  so  I  am.  We'll  go  out 
to-night,  if  you  like." 

She  got  his  clothes  for  him  and  helped  him  to  dress, 
but  he  was  so  weak  that  there  could  be  no  question  of 
his  going  out.  He  wrote  her  a  cheque  for  ten  pounds. 
She  went  out  and  cashed  it,  wired  to  the  Metropole  at 
Brighton  for  a  room,  and  bought  a  magnificent  dinner, 
caviare,  cold  pheasant,  potato  salad,  cheese,  crystallized 
fruits,  chocolates,  and  two  bottles  of  champagne. 

After  d,inner  he  tried  to  read  to  her,  but  it  was  no 
good.  She  could  not  listen,  though  she  tried  very  hard. 
Watching  her,  he  discovered  that  she  simply  lost  the 


198  PINK  ROSES 


thread  of  a  sentence  of  any  length,  and  that  words  used 
in  their  exact  sense  had  no  meaning  for  her.  He  was 
a  little  depressed,  but  also  relieved,  that  his  new  clean 
intellectual  life,  to  preserve  which  he  had  struggled  for 
so  long,  did  not  exist  for  her,  and  he  was  amused  at  the 
comfortable  pleasure  it  gave  him  to  have  his  relationship 
with  her  defined.  He  was  neither  ashamed  of  it  nor 
proud  of  them.  It  just  was  a  thing  that  had  happened 
to  him  and  had  somehow  acquired  a  permanent  quality, 
perhaps  because  Cora  was  permanent,  an  unalterable 
type,  a  personality  that  had  always  been  and  always 
would  be.  Everything  else  in  the  world  mivght  be  shift- 
ing and  inapprehensible,  but  she  remained. 

His  reading  bored  her — bored  her  until  she  wanted  to 
scream.  She  had  to  pinch  herself  to  remember  that  he 
had  been  ill  and  that  she  must  be  nice  to  him.  But  she 
wanted  him  to  "  wake  up,"  to  want  fun  and  nothing 
else,  to  take  life  as  though  it  were  a  box  of  crystallized 
fruits,  like  the  box  lying  between  them.  It  was  a  large 
box,  but  while  he  read  she  devoured  the  whole  of  its 
contents,  beginning  with  the  cherries  and  ending  with 
the  limes. 


XV 
BRIGHTON 

THE  Metropole  was  exactly  what  Trevor  wanted  after 
his  illness,  Brighton  the  very  place  to  keep  him  enter- 
tained and  gave  him  opportunities  for  salted  observa- 
tion. To  begin  with,  the  train  contained  comic  types  that 
seemed  to  have  been  especially  created  to  be  set  side  by 
side:  enormously  fat  men,  full-bosomed  bejewelled 
women,  middle-aged  men  whose  character  was  in  their 
trousers  and  their  spats,  absurd  young  women  delight- 
fully conscious  of  being  wicked,  raffish  young  men  try- 
ing hard  to  look  as  if  they  were  rich  and  used  to  travel- 
ling first  class,  nervously  sanguine  of  amorous  adven- 
ture as  they  eyed  the  self-conscious  young  women,  queer 
ancient  men  who  looked  as  though  they  had  miraculously 
made  a  fortune  out  of  a  travelling  Punch  and  Judy 
Show,  soldiers  in  khaki  and  hospital  blue,  thin  and 
sickly-looking  young  officers  with  red  and  green  tabs. 
...  A  wonderful  show.  ...  A  Punch  and  Judy 
Show.  .  .  .  And  Trevor  saw  it  all  with  the  clear  eyes 
of  convalescence.  .  .  .  Even  the  antique  memories 
aroused  by  the  names  of  the  stations  struck  an  absurd 
note,  and  so  did  the  sight  of  blue-coat  boys  in  yellow 
stockings  walking  the  lanes  near  Horsham.  ...  In 
the  strange  throng  Trevor  felt  a  reluctance  to  give  up 
anything  that  had  become  familiar.  There  were  types 
that  ought  long  ago  to  have  been  forgotten,  but  now 

199 


200  PINK  ROSES 


obviously  persisted  with  undiminished  zest;  types  that 
reminded  him  of  Frith's  Derby  Day,  people  for  whom 
life  was  one  long  Derby.  Two  couples  in  his  own  car- 
riage were  obviously  music-hall  performers,  terribly, 
bewilderingly  rich,  amusing  automata  who  went  on  from 
year  to  year  and  had  lost  all  sense,  even  all  taste  for  life. 
They  were  going  to  Brighton  because  Brighton  was  ex- 
pensive, the  best  place,  next  to  London,  in  which  to 
throw  money  away. 

As  the  train  slowed  down  he  jumped  out,  because  he 
did  not  wish  to  miss  one  of  these  comic  people.  They 
had  even  a  manner  reserved  for  arriving  at  Brighton, 
a  deliberate  holiday  air  of  being  released  for  the  time 
being  from  their  responsibilities  and  routine.  They 
opened  their  mouths  as  if  to  gulp  in  the  sea  air,  though 
the  atmosphere  of  the  station  was  as  foul  as  that  of 
Victoria:  but  especially  and  most  wonderfully  they 
brought  London  with  them  in  their  expression,  their 
walk,  their  obvious  refusal  to  accept  any  impression. 
.  .  .  There  was  a  rich  Jew  who  tore  fussily  along  the 
platform,  seeing  nothing,  knowing  nothing,  but  that  he 
must  spend  Saturday  night  and  Sunday  at  his  seaside 
house,  and  go  back  to  his  office  on  Monday  morning. 
Every  line  of  his  back  said  fussily:  "  I  am  a  very  busy 
man !  I  am  a  very  busy  man !  "  .  .  .  Trevor  delighted 
in  them  all.  It  was  worth  while  to  have  been  ill  to  gain 
this  heightened  sense  of  external  detail.  .  .  . 

Cora,  too,  had  her  Brighton  manner.  She  belonged 
perfectly  to  the  place,  and  found  nothing  strange  in  the 
people. 

"  What  are  you  staring  at  ?  Have  you  never  been  to 
the  seaside  before?" 

"  Not  in  war-time,"  he  replied.     "  One  would  expect 


BRIGHTON  201 


it  to  be  different,  but  it  isn't,  except  for  the  soldiers,  and 
even  they  only  look  like  people  dressed  up  to  look  at  the 
sea." 

Indeed,  the  number  of  soldiers  in  the  streets  and  on 
the  Parade  was  astounding,  and  they  had  nothing,  noth- 
ing whatever  to  do  except  to  stroll  listlessly  along  and 
spring  to  the  salute  when  an  officer  passed  them.  Their 
vacancy,  far  more  than  their  khaki,  was  the  only  indi- 
cation in  the  bustling  holiday  scene  that  there  was  some- 
where in  the  world  an  immense  oppressive  tragedy  from 
which  no  one  could  escape.  .  .  .  Here  thousands 
seemed  to  have  escaped.  The  hotel  was  full  to  over- 
flowing of  oppressively  rich  people  whose  one  aim  was 
to  spend  money  and  to  be  seen  spending  it,  and  the  first 
person  they  met  in  the  hall  was  Mr.  Ysnaga.  He  was 
standing  rubbing  at  his  finger-nails,  just  by  the  bureau, 
slyly  watching  the  arrivals  and  peering  at  the  register  to 
find  out  their  names. 

"Why,  Cora!"  he  said. 

"  Oh,  damn !  "  she  muttered  under  her  breath. 

"If  I'd  have  known  you  could  have  come  down  with 
us  by  car." 

There  was  no  way  out  of  it.  She  had  to  introduce 
Trevor,  who,  on  the  whole,  was  rather  pleased.  He  was 
feeling  charitable  towards  the  whole  world,  and  was  in 
revolt  against  the  exclusiveness  and  reserve  which  had 
always  rather  stood  in  his  way. 

He  gave  Ysnaga  his  hand  with  a  friendly  grin : 

"  I've  been  ill,"  he  said.  "  We've  come  down  for  con- 
valescence." 

"  Wonderful  air,  Brighton;  and  now  it's  a  great  place 
for  meeting  your  pals." 

He  stood  scrutinizing  Trevor  with  that  extraordinary 


202  PINK  ROSES 


lack  of  manners  which  in  a  Jew  seems  to  be  incurable, 
and  sized  him  up  as: 

"  No  nous.  Rich  but  cautious.  Probably  trust  funds. 
Oxford  or  Cambridge.  Innocent  as  a  babe.  What  the 
hell  does  he  want  with  Cora?" 

He  asked  politely: 

"  Any  news  in  London.  We  left  this  morning  and 
went  out  of  our  way  on  business.  My  friend  is  looking 
out  for  a  big  house  with  a  tradition,  pictures,  men  in 
armour,  walled  garden,  all  that,  and  a  maze  if  possible. 
He's  set  his  heart  on  a  maze."  He  grinned,  as  he  did 
everything,  slyly.  "  I  tell  him  that  if  he  waits  a  little 
longer  he'll  be  able  to  buy  Hampton  Court." 

"  A  modern  Wolsey  ?  "  asked  Trevor;  but  Mr.  Ysnaga 
had  never  heard  of  Wolsey.  To  him  the  greatest  figure 
in  history,  so  far  as  he  knew  it,  was  Rufus  Isaacs. 

Trevor  did  not,  could  not  like  the  Jew. 

"  Oil  and  water  don't  mix,"  he  thought. 

"  Well,"  said  Mr.  Ysnaga,  "  I  hope  you'll  soon  get 
strong.  If  you  would  like  it,  I'm  sure  my  friend  would 
let  you  have  his  car." 

"  Thank  you,"  said  Trevor. 

The  porter  was  ready  to  take  their  luggage  up  to  their 
room.  They  were  registered  as  Mr.  and  Mrs.  T.  Mathew. 

As  they  entered  the  lift  Mr.  Angel  came  down  the 
stairs,  as  usual  almost  tottering  on  his  little  loose  legs 
that  were  so  ridiculously  inadequate  for  his  heavy,  thick- 
set body.  Mr.  Ysnaga  stood  pulling  at  his  long  nose 
pondering  the  situation,  which  was  a  little  difficult  be- 
cause Cora  had  made  a  deep  impression  on  Mr.  Angel's 
susceptibilities. 

"  Cora's  here,"  he  said,  as  the  future  millionaire 
joined  him. 


BRIGHTON  203 


"  Dat's  good.     Dat's  good." 

"  She's  brought  down  a  young  friend  who's  been  ill." 

"A  nice  girl?" 

"  No.  It's  a  boy.  A  college  pup  who's  been  a  friend 
of  hers  for  a  long  time.  .  .  .  She's  that  kind-hearted. 
She'd  do  the  same  for  a  cat  or  a  dog  or  an  elephant. 
Any  sick  thing  she'll  take  charge  of,  and  she'll  roar  and 
howl  if  you  take  it  away  from  her.  ..." 

"  Ach !  I  knew  she  was  a  good  girl,"  said  Mr.  Angel, 
perspiring  with  appreciation.  Mr.  Ysnaga  perspired 
with  relief.  He  knew  that  Mr.  Angel  was  almost  hys- 
terically kind. 

"  Ach!  she's  a  fine  girl  and  a  good  girl.  Vot  a  vife 
she  vould  make!  Ask  them  to  dinner.  Is  the  boy  a 
shentleman?" 

"  Yes,  I  said  college,"  replied  Mr.  Ysnaga.  "  He 
looks  as  if  he'd  been  put  through  it.  I've  seen  the  same 
eyes  in  men  who  have  had  shell-shock." 

"  Ve  can't  do  too  much  for  dose  poor  boys,"  said  Mr. 
Angel. 

Upstairs,  from  the  windoSv  of  their  room  at  the 
front  of  the  hotel  Trevor  looked  out  at  the  wintry  sea. 
A  strong  wind  was  blowing,  the  water  was  almost  black, 
and  white  horses  tossed  and  spumed  out  of  the  waves. 
He  laughed  and  said: 

"  You  shall  wheel  me  down  in  a  bath-chair  like  little 
Dombey,  Cora,  and  I  will  look  wistful  and  pale,  and 
ask :  *  What  are  the  wild  waves  saying  ? ' 

But  Cora  was  not  listening.  She  was  slowly  unpack- 
ing, and  she  was  boiling  over  with  hatred  of  Mr. 
Ysnaga  because  she  had  had  to  introduce  Trevor  to  him. 

"  By  Jove,  it  is  good,"  said  Trevor.  "  Winter's  the 
time  for  the  sea.  It's  alive  then.  .  .  I  wish  we'd 


204  PINK  ROSES 


brought  Sydney,  but  they  don't  like  dogs  in  hotels,  and 
it  isn't  fair  to  the  dog  either.   ..." 

He  turned  away  from  the  window  and  watched  Cora. 
Extraordinary  the  number  o  f  things  a  woman  could  find 
to  do,  and  her  insistence  on  doing  everything  thor- 
oughly! Why  not  unpack  as  you  want  things?  .  .  . 
But  no,  she  must  have  everything  taken  out  and  put  in 
its  place.  She  must  make  even  an  hotel  bedroom  an 
abiding-place  and  surround  herself  with  familiar  detail. 
The  very  bed  must  be  decked  out  to  be  like  her  own,  and 
Cora  adorned  this  bed  with  pink  ribbons  and  a  satin 
night-dress  case  embroidered  with  pink  roses,  and  across 
the  end  of  it  she  threw  her  muslin  dressing-gown,  on 
which  again  were  pink  roses.  .  .  .  Trevor  enjoyed 
watching  her.  He  had  never  seen  her  before  without 
the  cloud  of  his  chaotic  feelings.  She  had  been  a  refuge, 
an  asylum,  rather  than  a  person,  and  he  had  been  young 
and  suffering,  and  now,  being  young,  he  thought  he 
was  neither,  that  all  the  troubles  of  his  life  were  over, 
and  that  henceforth  in  a  pleasant  philosophic  detach- 
ment— which  he  had  longed  to  enjoy  for  ever  at  Cam- 
bridge— he  could  live  in  security  in  delightfully  inap- 
propriate surroundings.  Cora  had  satisfied  his  curiosity 
about  women,  whose  mystery  was  surely  over-rated,  and 
he  would  be  able  to  devote  himself  to  showing  the  impor- 
tance of  doing  nothing.  Cora's  movements  pleased 
him  vastly.  He  liked  her  way  of  turning  everything, 
absolutely  everything,  into  physical  enjoyment.  When 
she  sat  in  a  chair  she  seemed  to  sink  into  its  embrace, 
when  she  dressed  herself  she  melted  into  her  clothes, 
and  when  she  put  on  her  shoes  she  could  never  help 
stroking  her  legs  in  approval.  .  .  .  All  that  pleased 
him.  It  was  so  gloriously  healthy  in  all  the  nervous 


BRIGHTON  205 


excitement  that  pervaded  the  streets,  the  thoroughfares, 
and  all  public  places.  ...  It  was  a  little  disconcerting, 
perhaps,  that  her  pleasure  in  him  was  of  exactly  the 
same  order  as  her  delight  in  shops  and  stockings  and 
muslin  dressing-gowns  and  good  wine,  but  that  again 
had  the  advantage  of  leaving  him  free  to  think  his  own 
thoughts  and  ride  his  own  hobby-horses  unmolested. 

A  messenger  arrived  with  a  note  from  Mr.  Angel,  in 
which  he  hoped  that  Cora  would  dine  with  him  and 
bring  her  friend,  if  he  were  well  enough.  She  crum- 
pled up  the  note  and  said: 

"  Certainly  not." 

"  Certainly  not  what?"  asked  Trevor,  who  was  lying 
back  in  a  big  chair,  watching  her. 

She  decided  net  to  lie,  and  said: 

"  It's  Ysnaga.  He  wants  us  both  to  dine  with  him 
and  his  old  friend." 

"Another  Jew?" 

"  Yes.    A  low  Jew." 

"  I'd  like  to  go.  I'm  interested  in  Jews.  They  are 
important  in  modern  life." 

"  I  shan't  go." 

"Why  not?" 

"  Oh !  I've  a  headache  .  .  .  I'll  dine  here.  You  can 
go.  It  will  do  you  good  to  go  among  the  people.  You're 
always  talking  about  them." 

"  Well,  I'll  stay  with  you." 

"  No.  Don't  offend  them.  They'll  think  you  despise 
them  because  they're  Jews.  I  couldn't  face  it.  You 
don't  know  what  it's  been  like  all  the  time  you've  been 
ill." 

By  this  she  had  really  persuaded  herself  that  the  strain 
had  been  very  severe  upon  her,  and  she  convinced  Trevor 


206  PINK  ROSES 


that  it  was  so.  He  went  to  her  and  made  a  fuss  of  her, 
told  her  what  a  splendid  creature  she  was,  and  how  he 
loved  her,  and  would  be  eternally  grateful  to  her,  and 
this  made  her  so  happy  that  in  the  end  she  felt  she  was 
making  a  great  sacrifice  in  letting  him  dine  with  Mr. 
Angel  and  Mr.  Ysnaga  when  she  was  too  unwell  to  go. 
At  last  she  had  almost  to  force  him  out  of  the  room, 
while  she  stayed  and  enjoyed  a  time  of  crucial  anxiety, 
wondering  whether  Mr.  Angel  would  be  jealous.  .  .  . 
Though  she  was  going  to  have  a  big  house  and  a  red 
dining-room  with  Trevor  and  be  a  good  woman,  yet 
Mr.  Angel  had  a  drawer  full  of  diamonds.  .  .  . 
Downstairs  in  the  great  dining-room  the  three  men 
dined  together  at  a  window  looking  out  to  the  sea,  and 
the  only  one  who  thought  of  Cora  at  all  was  Mr. 
Ysnaga,  and  he  was  simply  calculating  as  to  what  would 
happen  to  Cora  if  she  broke  with  Trevor,  who  had  had 
so  remarkable  an  effect  on  her.  Would  she  just  sink 
back,  take  to  drink,  and  muddling  through,  or  would 
her  admirable  commercial  sense  assert  itself  and  help 
her  to  exploit  the  new  charm  she  had  won? 

Mr.  Angel  was  so  kind  that  Trevor  warmed  to  him 
at  once.  The  little  Jew  looked  anxiously  at  his  pale  face, 
and  made  minute  inquiries  as  to  his  symptoms,  his  diges- 
tion, his  sleep,  the  length  of  his  illness,  the  quality  of 
his  medical  attendance.  A  son  or  a  brother  could  not 
have  given  him  more  anxiety,  and  when  he  discovered 
that  Trevor  was  debarred  by  his  heart  from  taking  part 
in  the  war  he  both  commiserated  and  congratulated  him 
in  one  breath.  With  a  few  veiled  leading  questions  he 
discovered  that  his  young  friend  was  rich,  and  had  al- 
ways been  used  to  wealth,  and  his  homage  was  un- 
bounded. 


BRIGHTON  207 


The  dinner  was  wild  in  its  extravagance.  Hardly 
anything  that  they  ate  was  in  season,  and  they  had  a 
different  wine  with  every  course,  and  Mr.  Angel  looked 
with  pathetic  dog-like  eyes  at  Trevor,  hoping  against 
hope  that  he  would  be  astonished,  and  when  he  was  not 
was  confirmed  in  his  adoration  of  him  as  an  English  gen- 
tleman. He  was  in  evening  clothes  with  a  velvet  collar 
and  much-braided  trousers,  and  in  his  shirt  front  shone 
an  enormous  diamond,  and  Trevor  found  after  a  time 
that  it  was  better  to  keep  his  host's  manners  more 
audible  than  visible;  and  this  suited  Mr.  Angel,  because 
he  could  never  meet  the  eye  of  any  interlocutor. 

With  dessert  he  became  expansive: 

"  Sixteen  years  ago,"  he  said,  "  I  had  not  a  penny, 
not  a  fard'n  in  de  welt,  and  dat  was  how  I  began.  I 
had  a  friend,  a  Russian  Jew,  so  simple.  Straight  from 
Russia.  In  London  he  vos  unhappy.  Lipinsky  his 
name  vos.  Ach!  He  vos  so  unhappy  dat  he  could  not 
lift  up  his  kop,  his  head,  to  make  a  living.  He  vos  a 
tailor,  and  made  suits  all  day  for  a  few  shillings.  Veil ! 
De  Vest  End  vos  too  far  for  him  to  go  who  had  come 
all  de  vay  from  Russia.  Dey  are  like  dat:  many  of 
them.  From  Russia  to  the  East  End,  dat  is  as  far  as 
dey  can  go.  But  I  vos  clever,  and  knew  my  vays  about. 
Mr.  Lipinsky  made  suits  and  got  no  money,  but  I  could 
get  money.  I  bought  Lipinsky's  suits,  for  a  few  shil- 
lings, and  I  had  a  friend  who  stole  silk  handkerchiefs.  I 
put  a  silk  handkerchief  in  de  pocket  of  Lipinsky's  suits, 
press  dem  veil,  give  dem  a  schmell  and  a  smart  look,  and 
take  dem  to  a  Vest  End  pawnbroker.  '  Give  me  two 
pounds  on  dis  suit,'  I  say,  walking  in  like  a  flash  Vest 
End  Jew,  and  de  pawnbroker  give  .  .  .  Veil,  I  had 
hundreds  of  suits  like  dat;  and  so  I  make  beginnings. 


208  PINK  ROSES 


Only  beginnings  are  interesting.  See?  It  goes  on  like 
dat.  .  .  .  Vot  is  cheap  in  one  place  is  dear  in  an- 
other." 

And  he  went  on  talking  lovingly  about  the  Jews  until 
Trevor  was  entranced  with  this  revelation  of  that  world 
within  the  world,  so  passionate,  so  vital,  so  full  of  in- 
domitable energy.  It  was  quite  clear  from  Mr.  Angel's 
talk  that  he  was  rather  bewildered  with  the  complexity 
of  the  Gentile  world.  He  admired  and  loved  it;  hun- 
gered to  be  of  it,  but  could  not  release  his  tenacious  grip 
on  essentials.  His  humanity  saved  him  from  being 
ignoble  in  his  insistence  that  a  man  must  eat  and  make 
money  before  there  was  room  for  anything  else.  This 
insistence  was  not  explicit.  It  ran  through  all  this  talk, 
and  made  it  seem  to  Trevor  like  a  hot  wind  blowing 
from  some  sun-scorched  place  in  which  life  could  not  be 
comfortable. 

"  And  Mr.  Lipinsky,"  he  asked.  "  Is  he  still  making 
suits  ?  " 

"  By  the  thousand !  "  beamed  Mr.  Angel.  "  He  is  in 
one  of  my  factories.  I  do  not  forget  my  friends.  But 
he  is  sad.  His  wife  is  dead,  and  his  daughter  Sophina 
is  with  thieves  and  schelms  in  de  Vest  End.  She  got  a 
taste  for  eveningdress " 

Mr.  Angel  pronounced  evening  dress  as  one  word  with 
the  accent  on  the  first  syllable,  and  he  made  it  convey 
what  was  in  his  mind:  nobility,  ease,  good  manners, 
everything  desirable  and  unattainable  by  Jews,  and  he 
also  conveyed  the  terrible  fate  that  overtakes  young 
Jewesses  who  think  that  there  are  short  cuts  to  these 
things. 

Trevor  knew  a  little  about  Jews,  because  at  Cam- 
bridge he  had  passed  through  a  period  of  hero  worship 


BRIGHTON  209 


of  Lassalle,  and  he  tried  to  talk  about  him,  but  the  name 
meant  no  more  to  Mr.  Angel  than  that  of  Moses.  What 
absorbed  him  was  the  rise  of  poor  Jews  to  opulence  and 
glory,  so  that  they  could  feast  with  real  gentlemen,  like 
Trevor  Mathew,  and  apparently  for  him  it  had  been 
something  of  a  struggle  until  the  war  came,  which  swept 
away  all  resistance  to  his  operations  and  also,  alas!  all 
the  gentlemen  and  all  the  ladies. 

As  the  dinner  drew  to  its  close,  Mr.  Angel  said : 

"  Ach !  You  begin  to  look  better  already.  To- 
morrow you  shall  have  my  car  for  a  drive  over  the 
Downs.  You  must  be  well  so  that  when  you  come  back 
to  London  you  can  begin  to  make  yourself  a  career, 
hein  ?  I'll  buy  you  a  newspaper,  eh  ?  Or  you  could  write 
a  book,  eh?  And  I  vould  advertise  it  all  over  Lon- 
don. ..." 

"  But  I'm  going  to  be  a  lawyer." 

"  Veil,  de  Prime  Minister  of  England  is  a  lawyer, 
isn't  he?" 

"  I'd  rather  just  enjoy  myself,  thanks,"  said  Trevor, 
and  his  answer  delighted  Mr.  Angel. 

"  A  good-looking  boy  like  you,"  he  said,  "  could  marry 
de  richest  girl  in  de  welt,  and  make  himself  famous,  and 
be  good  to  de  poor  and  get  all  de  vomen  to  vote  for 
him.  But  first  you  must  get  veil." 

His  offers  were  so  overwhelming,  he  was  so  nervously 
eager  to  do  something  to  help  that  Trevor  could  find  no 
way  out  of  accepting  the  use  of  the  car  on  the  morrow, 
hoping  against  hope  that  he  would  not  have  also  to 
accept  the  company  of  Mr.  Ysnaga  and  Mr.  Angel. 

That  fear  was  set  at  rest  on  the  Sunday  afternoon. 
The  two  Jews  had  to  go  to  see  a  friend  who  had  a  big 
business. 


210  PINK  ROSES 


Mr.  Ysnaga  whispered  to  Cora  as  she  stood  waiting 
for  the  car : 

"  He's  raving  about  the  boy,  quite  silly  about 
him." 

"  You  leave  the  boy  alone,"  said  Cora  jealously. 
"  He's  too  good  for  the  likes  of  you." 

Ysnaga  grinned  and  looked  down  his  long  nose.  Mr. 
Atigel  was  fussing  round  Trevor  as  though  he  were  a 
prize  animal  with  a  delicate  constitution  that  he  had 
bought  for  thousands  of  guineas. 

"  You  must  wrap  up  veil.  The  chief  thing  after  an 
illness  is  not  to  catch  cold.  ..."  He  turned  to  Cora 
and  said,  "  You  must  look  after  him  veil,  Cora.  Don't 
let  him  valk  a  step." 

He  fussed  round  while  they  got  into  the  car,  himself 
wrapped  the  immense  fur  round  them,  and  stood  waving 
his  hand  as  the  negro  chauffeur  pressed  the  accelerator 
and  set  the  car  moving. 

The  back  of  the  chauffeur's  head  was  familiar  to 
Trevor.  He  looked  round  at  the  car.  It  was  that  in 
which  they  had  driven  up  from  Sussex.  That  somehow 
annoyed  him,  and  at  the  same  time  made  him  want  to 
laugh  uncontrollably  at  the  idea  of  his  life  being  bound 
up  with  these  gorgeous  Hebrews.  He  had,  too,  a 
happy  sense  of  being  reconciled  at  last  to  this  new  civili- 
zation which  had  sprung  into  being  in  his  own  lifetime, 
a  civilization  in  which,  so  long  as  you  had  money  in  your 
pocket,  you  need  make  no  exertion  of  mind  or  body,  and 
if  you  were  so  minded,  could  just  lie  back  and  laugh. 
That  was  his  inclination  now,  to  lie  back  and  laugh  and 
to  contemplate  his  old  life  dwindling  into  the  remote 
distance,  a  narrow  life  of  earnest  effort,  of  easily  satis- 
fied ambitions,  of  self -contentment,  and  most  damnably 


BRIGHTON  2ii 


exclusive  in  its  morals.  ...  It  was  still  going  on  up 
in  the  North,  waiting  to  receive  him  after  he  had  been 
schooled  to  it  by  Hobday,  Treves  and  Treves,  and 
Henry  Hobday  was  its  perfect  exemplar.  Bred,  trained, 
schooled  in  the  law,  he  was  braced  and  renewed 
by  the  lawlessness  of  Mr.  Angel,  who  had  pawned 
worthless  clothes,  and  Mr.  Ysnaga,  who  had  been  in 
prison. 

The  car  was  powerful.  The  reserve  of  force  in  it 
was  intoxicating,  and  soon  they  were  up  on  the  Downs 
scudding  along  the  chalk-white  roads,  and  eating  up  the 
steep  hills,  plunging  into  little  sheltered  villages  in  the 
folds  of  the  Downs,  then  climbing  up  to  a  green  summit 
from  which  they  could  see  the  sea  under  the  wintry 
sun  cold  and  glassy.  Great  ships  went  slowly  by  far 
out,  and  ominous  grey  warships  filed  past  on  patrol.  It 
was  very  cool,  and  the  air  nipped  and  stung.  Once  they 
were  out  in  the  open  the  negro  chauffeur  gave  vent  to  his 
pride  in  the  car  and  sent  it  rocking  and  humming  along 
at  sixty,  seventy-five  an  hour,  and  for  three  miles  on  the 
very  top  of  the  Downs  above  Lewes,  he  tried  to  race  an 
aeroplane  which  appeared  above  them  filling  the  air  with 
the  hum  of  its  engines  and  the  whizz  of  its  planes  as  the 
wind  sang  through  them.  Speed !  Ah,  that  was  the  real 
thing  that  had  sent  the  old  ideas  scattering  like  so  many 
chickens  on  the  road.  .  .  .  The  car  went  loping  down 
a  long  hill  with  its  engine  shut  off.  At  the  bottom  they 
turned  a  corner  and  came  on  a  flock  of  sheep  with  an 
old  shepherd,  brown  as  a  walnut,  half-asleep,  pushing 
himself  along  with  his  heavy  stick.  .  .  .  Cora  screamed. 
The  chauffeur  turned  up  a  grassy  bank,  and  almost  over- 
turned the  car,  but  with  a  dexterous  and  mighty  twist  of 
the  front  wheels  righted  it,  and  came  down  into  the  road 


212  PINK  ROSES 


again.  The  sheep  started  running,  huddling  together, 
stopping,  running  on  again,  and  it  took  them  more  than 
half  an  hour  to  pass  them,  while  the  engine  thrummed 
impatiently,  and  then  they  only  escaped  by  turning  up 
a  narrow  lane  which  they  had  to  pursue  for  several 
miles  until  at  last  it  brought  them  out  suddenly  and  un- 
expectedly on  the  Brighton  road,  with  its  black  tarred 
surface  and  its  heavily  burdened  telegraph  poles.  .  .  . 
As  they  turned  into  it  they  came  on  a  car  which  had 
stopped.  It  contained  a  lovely  girl,  and  on  its  step  was 
sitting  disconsolately  a  very  distinguished-looking,  grey- 
haired  man.  Trevor  pressed  the  "  stop  "  button,  and  the 
negro  chauffeur  drew  up. 

"  Can  we  do  anything  ?  "  asked  Trevor. 

"  My  damn  fool  of  a  chauffeur  sent  me  out  with  the 
tank  leaking.  I've  stopped  that,  but  I've  run  out  of 
petrol." 

The  negro  turned  and  said: 

"  Plenty  petrol,  saV 

He  got  down,  took  out  a  can  of  petrol  and  handed  it 
to  the  disconsolate  stranger,  who  was  profuse  in  his 
thanks.  Trevor  had  an  impression  that  he  had  met  him 
before,  but  thought  he  might  have  seen  his  portrait  in 
the  papers.  The  stranger  had  that  kind  of  face,  probably 
a  successful  business  man  promoted  into  some  kind  of 
Controller.  The  girl  he  was  sure  he  had  seen,  but  he  could 
not  remember  where.  .  .  .  He  thought  her  extraor- 
dinarily beautiful,  and  he  was  deeply  moved  by  the  sad- 
ness in  her  eyes  and  the  firmness  of  her  lips.  She  never 
looked  at  him,  but  stared  straight  in  front  of  her  as 
though  she  were  trying  to  define  some  vague  thought 
in  her  mind.  Her  expression,  her  whole  attitude,  put 
a  stop  to  Trevor's  exhilaration,  and  he  was  maddened 


BRIGHTON  213 


when,  as  they  moved  off,  Cora,  turning  contemptuously, 
said: 

"  Some  City  man  with  his  typist." 

"  Not  at  all.     She  looks  more  like  his  daughter." 

"  Daughter !  "  she  sniffed. 

Trevor  lay  back  and  cudgelled  his  brains  to  find  out 
where  and  when  he  had  seen  the  couple  before.  They 
had  been  somehow  different,  perhaps  not  alone.  .  .  . 
No.  He  could  not  place  them. 

"What  are  you  thinking  about?"  asked  Cora,  jeal- 
ously. 

"  Nothing.  Sheep,  I  think.  They  do  take  a  hell  of 
a  time  to  get  out  of  the  way." 

They  were  in  Brighton  again,  the  object  of  envious 
eyes,  and  some  of  the  women,  who  knew  Cora,  made 
audible  remarks.  At  the  hotel  they  were  received  with 
all  the  respect  due  to  a  duke  and  duchess,  and  both  of 
them  took  it  as  just  and  due  to  them.  Had  they  not 
enjoyed  an  excursion  in  the  motor  car  of  a  future  mil- 
lionaire? 

Cora  went  upstairs,  but  Trevor  stayed  in  the  hall  hop- 
ing that  the  stranger  and  the  beautiful  girl  would  arrive, 
but  they  did  not  come,  and  at  last  he  went  up  to  his 
room.  Cora  was  brushing  her  hair,  and  had  changed 
into  her  muslin  peignoir  with  the  pattern  of  pink  roses. 
Trevor  stared  at  them.  They  were  the  clue  he  had  been 
seeking.  A  grey  dress.  .  .  .  But  what  had  that  to  do 
with  pink  roses? 

He  went  to  the  window  and  looked  out  at  the  grey 
sea.  Oh!  yes.  There  was  a  boy,  a  nice  boy  of  whom 
he  remembered  thinking  that  it  was  a  pity  he  would 
have  to  grow  up  into  a  soldier  instead  of  a  man.  .  .  ., 
But  where? 


2i4  PINK  ROSES 


Cora  started  chattering,  and  he  silenced  her  abruptly. 

"  How  dare  you  speak  to  me  like  that !  "  she  said. 
"  How  dare  you  ?  " 

"I  didn't  mean  to  be  rude;  I  was  thinking." 

"  That's  just  like  a  man.  He  leans  on  a  woman  when 
he  is  ill,  and  forgets  all  about  her  when  he  is  well." 

"  Don't  be  silly,  Cora.  I  was  only  trying  to  remember 
something." 

"  You're  quite  different  down  here.  I  don't  believe 
you  love  me  a  bit." 

"  Of  course  I  love  you,  Cora,  or  I  shouldn't  be  here. 
...  I  wish  you  could  get  that  firmly  and  finally  into 
your  head,  that  it  would  be  impossible  for  me  if  I  did 
not  love  you.  ..." 

Again  a  messenger  arrived  with  a  note  from  Mr. 
Angel  inviting  them  both  to  dinner. 

"  Oh,  damn  the  Jew !  "  said  Trevor  irritably.  "  Why 
can't  he  leave  us  alone?  He  behaves  as  though  he  had 
bought  us.  ...  We'll  have  dinner  up  here." 

"  I  want  to  go,"  said  Cora.  "  They're  going  back  to 
London  to-morrow,  and  we  shall  have  all  our  time  to 
ourselves." 

"  Then  why  didn't  you  come  last  night?  " 

"  I  had  a  headache." 

Her  chatter  had  wrecked  his  pursuit  of  the  clue,  the 
grey  dress  and  a  boy.  .  .  .  Where  on  earth  had  he 
seen  them  before  and  why  had  she  changed  so  vitally? 
He  tried  to  tell  himself  that  it  was  no  affair  of  his,  and 
to  occupy  himself  and  to  shake  off  the  teasing  memory, 
he  decided  to  pay  Mr.  Angel  the  compliment  of  evening 
dress. 

"  I  like  your  old  Jew,  Cora,"  he  said.  "  He's  a 
scoundrel,  but  he  is  so  amazingly  kind.  That's  one 


BRIGHTON 


thing  that  good  people  seem  to  forget  in  their  struggle 
to  maintain  their  goodness — to  be  kind."  He  was  think- 
ing of  his  father  and  mother.  "  They  want  to  know 
what  people  have  done  before  they  will  try  to  find  out 
what  they  want." 

"  I've  never  met  anybody  good  except  you,  Boy,"  said 
Cora,  falling  in  love  with  him  all  over  again  when  she 
saw  him,  clean-cut  and  handsome,  in  his  evening  clothes. 

"  Eveningdress,"  he  said,  mimicking  Mr.  Angel. 
"  Der  vos  no  shordt  cut  to  eveningdress  for  Jewish 
girls." 

Cora  shrieked  with  laughter. 

"That's  him  to  the  life,  Boy.  .  .  .  Ooh!  You  are 
clever.  You  could  make  fifty  pounds  a  week  on  the 
halls.  ...  I  often  think  it's  a  pity  you're  so  well  off. 
It  would  make  a  man  of  you  to  be  poor.  .  .  .  Do  run 
down  and  get  me  some  flowers.  I  want  to  look  my  best 
to-night.  You  look  so  topping  in  your  evening  dress." 

Trevor  went  down  and  bought  her  some  chrysanthe- 
mums. In  the  florist's  shop  was  a  bunch  of  delicious 
rose-buds,  and  they  set  him  off  thinking  again.  .  .  . 
A  grey  dress.  ...  A  boy.  ...  A  boy.  ...  A 
grey  dress.  ...  It  was  maddening  that  his  memory 
should  stop  short  at  that.  In  London,  of  course:  and 
he  thought  of  the  office,  but  that  was  absurd.  He  had 
never  seen  a  beautiful  girl  in  the  office,  and  Cora's  sug- 
gestion that  she  was  a  typist  was  cruelly  grotesque.  A 
girl  with  those  eyes  and  that  chin  would  never  endure 
drudgery  of  that  kind  nor,  surely,  would  any  one  dare 
inflict  it  on  her.  .  . 

"Lovely  roses,"  said  the  florist;  "the  last  this  year." 

"How  much?" 

"  Ten  shillings  a  bunch." 


216  PINK  ROSES 


Trevor  wanted  to  buy  them  for  himself.  He  knew 
that  Cora  would  take  them  as  a  tender  allusion  to  their 
meeting  in  the  park,  and  that  had  slipped  away  into  the 
irrecoverable,  almost  the  immemorable  past.  It  was  one 
of  the  things  which  already  he  discarded  as  being  on  the 
other  side  of  his  illness. 

"  How  much  for  one  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  One  shilling,"  said  the  florist. 

Trevor  had  given  up  thinking  of  war  prices,  which 
had  become  so  fluid  that  one  simply  gulped  down  his 
astonishment  and  paid.  The  world  had  been  hitched  to 
all  the  cars  of  all  the  Angels,  and  there  was  simply  no 
keeping  pace  with  it. 

The  florist  gave  him  one  rose-bud,  and  he  pinned  it 
in  his  coat  and  went  upstairs  again  fingering  it  lovingly. 
Cora's  eyes  fastened  on  it  as  soon  as  he  entered,  and 
he  explained: 

"  I  bought  it  for  luck.  There  were  only  a  few  left, 
and  I  thought  you  would  like  something  more  showy." 

Her  lower  lip  began  to  work. 

"I  never  thought  of  roses,"  she  said.  "You  know 
what  they  mean  to  me.  I  won't  wear  your  horrid 
chrysanthemums.  Give  me  the  rose." 

Reluctantly  he  gave  it  to  her,  and  she  pinned  it  on 
the  bosom  of  her  gorgeous  blue  gown,  where  it  was 
lost,  dismally,  hopelessly,  and  Trevor  felt  sorry.  It 
needed  a  simple  grey  dress.  .  .  .  Oh,  damn  the  grey 
dress! 

Mr.  Angel  had  also  been  to  the  florist,  and  his  table 
in  the  window  was  overwhelmed  with  flowers  and  green- 
stuff. He  was  again  in  evening  dress  and  had  a  green 
silk  handkerchief  stuffed  into  his  waistcoat,  and  the  first 
thing  he  said  was: 


BRIGHTON  217 


"  If  you  like  I  can  leave  the  car  for  you  next  veek. 
I  can  buy  a  new  one." 

"  Oh  no,  thanks,"  said  Trevor.  "  It  will  do  me  good 
to  walk.  I'll  crawl  along  to  the  Parade,  and  when  I  can 
walk  as  far  as  Rottingdean  then  I  shall  know  it  is  time 
to  go  back  to  work." 

"  Vork !  "  said  Mr.  Angel.  "  In  ten  years  it  vill  be 
time  for  you  to  talk  of  vork.  You  find  out  vot  de  vorld 
is  like  first,  hein  ?  " 

"  I'm  doing  my  best,"  said  Trevor,  with  a  grin.  "  One 
learns  something  in  a  lawyer's  office." 

"What  office  are  you  in?"  asked  Mr.  Ysnaga 
politely. 

"  Hobday,  Treves  and  Treves.  A  commercial 
firm." 

Mr.  Ysnaga's  face  gave  an  almost  imperceptible 
twitch. 

"Oh,  yes!"  he  said.  "I  know  them.  Mr.  Barnes 
still  there?" 

"Still  there,"  answered  Trevor.  "Working  like  a 
ferret." 

"  Barnes !  "  cried  Cora.    "  Why,  that's  the  man— 

And  her  face  winced  as  Mr.  Ysnaga  kicked  her  under 
the  table. 

"  De  law,"  said  Mr.  Angel,  "  is  too  slow  for  me.  Ven 
I  have  a  dispute  I  settle  him  and  take  my  revenge  after- 
wards." 

Trevor  felt  absolutely  certain  that  Mr.  Ysnaga  had 
kicked  Cora  under  the  table,  and  he  was  annoyed.  He 
remembered  little  Mr.  Barnes  in  the  office  throwing  back 
his  head  and  shouting  with  laughter  at  the  thought  of 
Mr.  Ysnaga  in  prison,  and  he  was  suddenly  sickened  by 
his  society.  Angel  he  liked.  Cora  was  the  human  being 


218  PINK  ROSES 


nearest  to  him,  but  Ysnaga  was— well,  to  put  it  bluntly 
— a  swindler.    It  was  written  all  over  his  face. 

The  dinner  was  not  going  well,  but  Mr.  Angel  was 
oblivious  of  it.  He  was  prostrate  in  adoration  of  the 
young  gentleman  who  had  put  on  evening  dress  in  his 
honour,  and  wore  it  as  only  an  English  gentleman  could. 
He  had  been  quite  hurt  that  Trevor  would  not  accept  his 
car  for  the  week,  but  to  hide  his  feelings  talked  volubly 
of  his  plans  for  making  more  money  out  of  the  theatre, 
and  at  last  his  talk  swamped  the  discomfort  of  the 
sudden  intrusion  of  Mr.  Barnes. 

"  I'm  never  wrong  about  money,"  said  Mr.  Angel. 
"  Dere's  money  in  Cora  and  dere's  money  in 
you.  ..." 

'  You  should  hear  him  mimic,"  said  Cora.  "  He 
keeps  me  laughing  sometimes  for  hours,  and  you  should 
see  him  making  fun  of  the  cinema.  He'd  make  you  die 
of  laughing,  and  there's  a  friend  of  his,  Mr.  Cherryman, 
whom  I've  never  seen,  but  it's  the  man  alive." 

"  The  public  likes  mimicry,"  said  Mr.  Ysnaga,  uncom- 
fortably attempting  to  keep  his  end  up.  "  They  love 
imitations  of  George  Robey  and  Crock  and  George 
Formby  ..." 

But  nobody  paid  any  attention  to  him,  and  his  face 
shone  with  his  uneasiness.  He  had  worked  for  years  to 
make  himself  indispensable  to  Mr.  Angel,  and  now  he 
was  being  brushed  aside  by  the  old  fool's  extraordinary 
passion  for  the  young  Englishman. 

"  Do  ...  do  Mr.  Cherryman,"  urged  Cora,  and 
Trevor,  to  oblige,  gave  an  exact  imitation  of  the  editor 
of  the  Hardman  poems,  shaking  his  shoulders  as  he 
talked  in  a  little  voice,  saying  the  things  that  everybody 
was  saying,  hurt  if  anybody  expressed  his  own  thoughts 


BRIGHTON  219 


or  his  own  feelings,  eager  to  be  charmed  by  everything 
and  everybody,  finding  everything  and  everybody  charm- 
ing, exquisite,  divine.  .  .  .  Mr.  Angel  laughed  until 
the  tears  rolled  down  his  cheeks.  "  Ho !  Ho !  Ho !  "  he 
said.  "  That's  him  .  .  .  Oh !  That's  him.  I've  never 
met  him,  but  there's  thousands  of  him,  and  they're  run- 
ning the  war.  Ho!  Ho!  Ho!  They're  running  the 
war!" 

But  Trevor's  thoughts  were  sixty  miles  away.  His 
concentration  on  Cherryman  had  reminded  him.  Of 
course  he  had  been  with  Cherryman,  just  turning  into 
St.  James's  Park  when  Cherryman  had  swept  his  hat  off 
to  the  stranger,  and  the  girl  and  a  boy.  She  was  wear- 
ing a  grey  dress,  and  at  her  breast  she  had  a  single  pink 
rose,  and  so  little  had  he  noticed  them  at  the  time  that 
he  had  not  even  asked  who  they  were.  Father,  daughter, 
and  son,  probably.  ...  A  nice  family,  good  people, 
and  very  pleasant  to  think  of  now  with  the  old  Tew 
laughing  until  greasy  tears  oozed  out  of  his  eyes,  and 
Mr.  Ysnaga  calculating,  always  calculating,  and  Cora 
eating,  drinking,  laughing  voluptuously.  .  .  .  He  glared 
at  the  pink  rose-bud  at  her  bosom  and  longed  to  pluck 
it  out.  It  was  so  inappropriate  as  to  be  almost  a  dese- 
cration. 

"Ho!  Ho!  Ho!"  laughed  Mr.  Angel.  "Ho!  I 
haven't  enjoyed  myself  so  for  years  and  years.  Ach! 
You  must  come  to  dinner  with  me  in  London,  to  see  my 
flat." 

Cora  winced. 

"  I  haf  pictures,  and  jade,  and  jewels,  and  old  furni- 
ture, and  china  and  porcelain,  and  a  gramophone,  and 
an  electrophone  and  a  pianola,  and  soon  I  shall  have  a 
big  house  in  the  country  when  a  lord  sells  up,  and  then 


220  PINK  ROSES 


I  shall  have  a  band  of  my  own,  and  a  music-hall  at  the 
week-end  parties.  .  .  .  Ach!  if  you  would  only  help 
me  mit  it  all,  and  bring  young  gentlemans  like  your- 
self. ..." 

The  prospect  thus  opened  was  so  fantastic  that  it 
almost  tempted  Trevor.  What  could  he  not  do  with  the 
dazzling  opportunity  ?  .  .  .  But  he  shrugged  his  shoul- 
ders. There  was  nothing  particular  that  he  wanted  to 
do.  His  own  generation  was  guttered  out.  The  younger 
generation  would  probably  not  understand  him,  and  the 
ideas  that  he  and  his  friends  had  had  were  made  to  look 
rather  silly  by  the  war  and  the  immense  change  it  had 
wrought  in  the  social  fabric.  .  .  .  Still,  a  millionaire 
asking  him,  almost  imploring  him,  to  waste  his  money 
for  him.  .  .  .  He  looked  across  at  Cora.  No,  it  was 
impossible.  With  her  there  could  be  nothing  but  food 
and  clothes  and  music-halls.  She  and  Ysnaga  could 
waste  Mr.  Angel's  money  magnificently.  .  .  . 

At  once  he  was  furious  with  himself  for  coupling  her 
name  with  Ysnaga's.  That  was  one  of  the  things  he 
could  never  admit  to  himself.  He  did  not  know,  did  not 
want  to  know,  what  had  been  in  her  life  and  before  him- 
self. And  he  had  fully  developed  the  British  faculty  of 
not  seeing  what  he  did  not  wish  to  see. 

"  I  vant  a  place  mit  a  great  park,"  said  Mr.  Angel, 
"  and  an  old  vail  dot  runs  for  miles  and  miles  along  de 
road.  And  ven  people  go  by  in  der  cars  I  vant  dem  to 
say:  'Who  lives  dere?  .  .  .  Oh!  dot's  Angel,  vot  used 
to  pawn  Mr.  Lipinsky's  trousers  in  de  Vest  End  .  .  .' 
And  I  should  feel  so  happy  in  it  if  you  vos  dere.  It 
could  be  your  place  too,  and  you  could  be  Prime  Min- 
ister of  England.  ..." 

"  No  great  difficulty  about  that/'  said  Trevor.    "  Any- 


BRIGHTON  221 


body  who  really  wanted  the  job  could  have  it  now  for 
the  asking." 

He  was  so  worried  by  the  rose-bud  in  Cora's  bosom 
that  he  could  not  pay  much  attention  to  what  Mr.  Angel 
said,  and  Mr.  Ysnaga  brightened  up. 

"  To-morrow,"  he  said,  "  Mr.  Angel  and  I  are  going 
to  look  for  a  park.  I  thought  of  looking  in  the  Good- 
wood district.  That's  a  great  place  for  the  big  bugs. 
Some  of  'em  must  be  feeling  a  draught." 

"  I  von't  buy  a  dem  thing,"  said  Mr.  Angel,  pettishly, 
"  unless  Mr.  Mathew  promises  dot  he  vill  come  to  shtay 
mit  me." 

"  I'll  promise,"  said  Trevor  carelessly. 

"  Den  it's  a  pargain.  .  .  .  Ach!  If  you  could  imi- 
tate for  me  my  General  at  de  Var  Office.  You  know, 
Mr.  Mathew,  he  helps  me  on  mit  my  coat  as  if  I  was  a 
lord,  and  shakes  hands  mit  me  mit  his  vite  hand  and  de 
nails  all  manicured  ..." 

It  Lad  just  began  to  penetrate  to  Cora's  brain  what 
was  being  offered  to  Trevor,  and  she  was  gasping  like  a 
fish.  ...  A  big  house  and  a  red  dining-room !  These 
new  possibilities  blew  that  ideal  sky  high.  .  .  .  She 
saw  herself  with  cars,  as  many  drawing-rooms  as  she 
liked,  footmen,  maids,  a  man  and  wife  at  the  lodge,  like 
the  people  in  the  manor-house  at  home,  but  ten  times,  a 
thousand  times,  as  rich,  and  with  London — London  to 
be  ransacked,  if  only  she  could  manage  Trevor.  She 
knew  she  could.  He  had  made  no  protest  as  one  by  one 
she  had  snipped  the  threads  that  bound  him  to  his  for- 
mer life.  .  .  .  What  a  chance!  It  almost  turned  her 
sick.  Here  he  was  being  offered  almost  inconceivable 
wealth  and  power,  and  he  was  treating  it  nonchalantly, 
behaving  as  though  Mr.  Angel  were  offering  him  a  cigar. 


222  PINK  ROSES 


It  was  almost  more  than  she  could  bear.  She  could  see 
Ysnaga's  little  eyes  glistening  from  one  to  the  other, 
from  Angel  to  Trevor  and  from  Trevor  to  herself,  just 
as  in  the  old  days  he  uSed  to  look.  She  had  forgotten 
the  old  days  for  so  long  now,  and  suddenly  she  found 
herself  staring  into  them  with  horror.  .  .  .  Ysnaga, 
as  she  had  first  found  him  in  a  poor  restaurant  in  the 
West  End,  down  at  heel  and  woefully  shabby,  but — 
agued  with  ambition  and  talking  romantically  big  about 
himself.  .  .  .  She  had  picked  him  up  and  cleaned  him 
down  and  he  had  been  useful  to  her.  .  .  .  And  now 
she  wanted  Trevor  to  be  terribly,  terribly  rich,  so  that 
she  could  show  her  mettle.  .  .  .  She  could  hardly  rest 
until,  upon  Mr.  Angel's  insistence,  Trevor  promised  that 
he  would  go  and  see  him  in  London,  and  would  stay  with 
him  in  his  park  when  he  bought  it  from  a  lord. 

The  two  Jews  and  Cora  were  feverishly  excited,  but 
Trevor  was  thinking  of  St.  James's  Park  and  a  grey 
dress  and  a  pink  rose,  and,  if  there  was  any  fever  in 
him  it  was  to  go  back  to  London  as  soon  as  possible, 
and  to  ask  Cherryman  about  the  grey-haired  man  and 
the  girl  in  the  grey  dress  and  the  boy. 


XVI 
THE  RUSSIAN  FLAVOUR 

IT  took  Sophina  Lipinsky  six  weeks  to  discover  and  to 
accept  that  there  was  not  the  slightest  chance  of  Carline 
marrying  her.  Of  her  as  woman  he  was  almost  oblivious. 
With  her  as  Russian  he  was  infatuated  :  she  quickly  made 
up  her  mind  as  to  the  best  way  to  exploit  the  situation 
that  had  arisen.  Out  of  her  life  with  Finberg  she 
remembered  just  enough  to  keep  her  going,  and  when 
in  difficulties  she  found  the  easiest  way  out  was  to  talk 
broken  English.  She  had  known  Russian  and  Polish 
Jews  at  home,  and  she  had  a  good  ear  and  could  repro- 
duce their  accent:  but  she  was  hard  put  to  it  for  her 
invention  to  keep  pace  with  Carline's  appetite.  He  had 
sentimentalized  the  Russian  peasant,  and  looked  to  Dos- 
toievsky's Idiot  as  the  type  which  should  save  the  world 
and  give  London  society  the  savour  which  it  had  lost. 
He  rilled  his  rooms  with  Ikons  which  he  obtained  from 
civil  servants  who  were  sent  on  missions  to  Petrograd, 
and  he  seriously  contemplated  joining  the  Russian  Ortho- 
dox Church.  .  .  .  What  he  wanted  from  Sophina  was 
to  learn  how  to  be  a  Russian.  He  had  tried  with  various 
Russian  men,  but  they  had  laughed  at  him  and  had 
snubbed  him  unmercifully.  Sophina  to  him  was  a  gift 
sent  straight  from  Heaven.  He  knew  that  Russians  sat 
or  lay  on  the  floor,  that  they  slept  on  the  stove,  that  they 
spent  days  and  nights  in  cafes,  listening  to  gipsies,  that 

233 


224  PINK  ROSES 


they  were  always  on  the  verge  of  suicide,  that  they  in- 
variably carried  revolvers  to  be  ready  for  it,  that  they 
talked  for  hours  on  end,  that  they  wanted  to  be  Russian, 
only  Russian,  and  nothing  but  Russian,  that  they  drank 
vodka  and  ate  enormously,  that  they  took  sugar  and 
lemon  in  their  tea,  that  they  lived  in  groups  and  all  to- 
gether ran  wildly  from  house  to  house  discussing  either 
some  profound  idealism  or  an  obscure  psychological  com- 
plex in  one  of  their  friends,  that  they  did  nothing  at  all 
for  long  stretches  of  time,  that  what  they  did  was  done 
spasmodically  and  frantically,  that  they  hated  and 
dreaded  Jews,  and  that  they  told  each  other  comic  stories 
from  Tschekov,  poetic  passages  from  Poushkin  and 
witticisms  from  Gogol.  And  he  did  all  these  things,  but 
never  quite  to  his  satisfaction,  and  he  looked  to  Sophina 
to  give  him  the  real  Russian  flavour.  She  did  her  best, 
read  Dostoievsky  and  Tolstoi,  but  even  then  was  often 
in  difficulties  until  she  invented  an  early  life  for  herself 
which  solved  the  problem. 

She  told  him,  to  his  exquisite  delight,  that  she  of  course 
had  not  lived  a  normal  life  in  Russia,  as  she  had  been 
taken  at  a  very  early  age  into  the  school  for  the  Imperial 
Russian  Ballet,  where  life  was  more  strict  and  strenuous 
even  than  that  of  a  convent.  She  had  been  trained  and 
trained,  beaten,  half-starved,  drilled,  taught  nothing  but 
dancing,  dancing,  dancing,  from  morning  to  night :  noth- 
ing else,  nothing  for  her  head,  nothing  for  the  soul,  her 
Russian  soul. 

No  invention  could  have  been  luckier.  Carline  was 
ecstatic.  His  Russian  passion  had  begun  with  the  Russian 
Ballet :  and  had  only  been  nurtured  by  the  plentiful  supply 
of  Russian  novels  which  had  been  put  forth  in  such  abun- 
dance because  there  is  no  copyright  in  them,  and  the 


THE  RUSSIAN  FLAVOUR  225 

Russian  author  goes  unpaid:  the  Russian  alliance  had 
brought  it  to  its  fever  heat,  and  that  vast  country  which 
to  most  Englishmen  remained  an  enigma  became  to  Car- 
line  a  definitely  Holy  Russia,  the  place  from  which  a 
new  religion  would  come,  the  great  power  which  would 
save  England  from  devouring  Germany :  the  steam-roller. 
The  war  had  made  him  take  Russia  more  seriously  than 
was  in  his  capacity,  and  it  was  an  intense  relief  to  him 
when  Sophina  revealed  her  connection  with  the  Russian 
Ballet.  He  could  then  slip  back  into  the  years  before  this 
war,  and  abandon  the  strained  intensity  which  had  been 
forced  upon  him  by  the  removal  of  all  the  delightful 
institutions  that  had  existed  for  his  amusement.  He 
would  sigh  and  say : 

"  Oh,  if  they  were  only  here  now!  I  hate  revues.  I 
loathe  rag-time." 

And  for  Sophina,  too,  it  was  a  serious  matter.  She 
had  always  hoped  that  somehow  Ruth  would  be  able  to 
help  her  to  find  her  way  to  solid  ground;  but  Ruth  had 
suddenly  altered,  had  become  reserved,  guarded,  almost 
indifferent,  and  refused  to  accompany  her  to  Mr.  Cherry- 
man's  or  Mr.  Carline's  flat.  At  first  she  took  it  as  rather 
a  joke,  and  yet  another  proof  of  Carline's  gullibility  that 
he  swallowed  her  story  of  the  Russian  Ballet,  but  it  soon 
passed  beyond  that.  .  .  .  Cherryman  had  a  pianola,  and 
he  insisted  on  her  dancing  when  they  went  there,  for  they 
were,  by  his  insistence,  almost  inseparable,  and  he  treated 
her  almost  as  if  she  were  what  she  had  desired  to  be  to 
him.  He  bought  her  clothes,  little  trinkets,  Russian,  of 
course,  paid  her  bills,  and  as  the  price  of  food  went  up, 
sent  her  parcels  from  Fortnum  &  Mason. 

It  was  one  night  when  she  was  dancing  that  the  great 
idea  came  to  her. 


226  PINK  ROSES 


Why  not? 

The  idea  grew  apace,  took  possession  of  her.  Why 
not? 

Surely  any  fool  could  learn  to  dance  as  well  as  the 
heavy-eyed  women  on  the  music-halls.  Carline  knew 
everybody.  All  his  friends  were  working  for  various 
funds.  She  could  begin  by  dancing  to  the  soldiers,  who 
had  to  put  up  with  what  they  could  get.  A  wonderful 
idea.  She  would  do  it.  She  would  show  that  swine  of  a 
Finberg,  she  would  show  her  father  that  a  Jewish  girl 
can  make  her  way  without  her  family  and  without  being 
given  by  a  match-maker  to  a  man  who  covets  her  and 
her  dowry.  She  would  show  them.  Besides,  she  had 
begun  to  enjoy  dancing.  When  she  was  successful  and 
famous  her  father  would  forgive  her.  She  knew  that 
he  had  made  money  since  the  war,  and  that,  as  so  often 
happened  among  the  Jews,  a  rich  friend  had  remembered 
help  given  in  his  time  of  poverty. 

She  remained  at  the  Ministry  with  Ruth,  who  was  now 
working  entirely  for  Trenham  and  not  at  all  in  connection 
with  the  rest  of  the  department,  and  Ruth  was  always 
willing  to  do  her  work  for  her  while  she  went  away.  She 
could  find  time  then  for  lessons,  and  she  practised  early 
in  the  morning  and  late  at  night,  not  only  at  dancing  but 
at  the  new  personality  she  desired  to  assume.  Sophina 
Dolgorova :  she  found  the  name  in  a  book  and  she  began 
in  season  and  out  to  wear  furs,  for  which  Carline  gladly 
paid.  The  only  thing  that  amazed  her  was  that  she  had 
not  thought  of  it  before.  That  was  Finberg's  fault,  with 
his  nonsense  about  pictures  and  poetry.  The  stage  was 
the  obvious  thing  for  making  money  and  conquering  the 
West  End.  Even  if  you  could  paint  pictures  and  write 
poetry,  who  cared?  If  you  could  sing  or  dance  or  act, 


THE  RUSSIAN  FLAVOUR     227 

or  even  if  you  couldn't,  you  could  appear  at  the  Coliseum 
before  almost  the  whole  of  the  West  End  packed  into 
one  building. 

Carline  paid  for  her  lessons,  and  when,  after  a  few 
weeks,  she  announced  that  she  had  recovered  her  form— 
ah !  but  it  was  terrible  to  remember  the  tortures  she  had 
undergone  as  a  child — he  arranged  a  party  in  Cherry- 
man's  rooms,  to  which  he  invited  Trenham,  Ruth — who 
refused — several  poets,  a  few  actresses,  several  ladies  of 
title  and  a  number  of  young  men  in  the  Guards  who  had 
not  yet  made  up  their  minds  what  branch  of  the  Army 
best  suited  them,  and  had  stayed  in  London  changing 
from  one  to  the  other.  They  had  joined  the  Army  in 
peace-time,  and  could  not  get  accustomed  to  the  idea  of 
war,  for  they  had  never  perceived  the  connection  be- 
tween the  two.  Cherryman  invited  more  poets,  several 
ladies  of  title,  a  novelist  who  had  written  several  books 
about  Russia  in  the  Russian  style,  and,  as  an  after- 
thought, Trevor  Mathew,  all  that  was  left  of  the  brilliant 
trio  of  pre-war  days. 

He  wrote : 

"  My  dear,  of  course  it  isn't  a  party.  How  could  one 
in  such  times?  It  is  just  to  meet  a  remarkable  Russian 
dancer  who  is  to  appear  for  various  charities.  Do  come, 
Love.  .  .  .  The  poems  are  having  an  enormous  sale  in 
America." 

Trevor,  who  had  returned  to  London  a  few  days  be- 
fore, decided  to  go.  He  wanted  to  ask  Cherryman  about 
the  man  and  the  girl  in  the  motor-car.  He  told  Cora  that 
there  were  some  old  friends  of  his  with  whom  he  wished 
to  resume  contact  for  various  reasons,  primarily  because 
they  might  be  useful  later  on.  Cora  took  that  as  a  sign 
of  grace  in  him,  and  thought  he  meant  that  he  would 


228  PINK  ROSES 


introduce  them  to  Mr.  Angel  so  as  to  give  him  the  entree 
he  desired  to  good  society. 

"  Very  well,  darling,"  she  said.  "  I'll  find  things  to  do, 
only  don't  be  late." 

"  No.  I  won't  be  late.  And  by  the  way,  Cora,  my 
people  are  getting  restive.  You  mustn't  mind  if  I  go  up 
there  for  a  few  days." 

"Oh!    Must  you?" 

"  It's  only  fair.  I  haven't  been  near  them  for  months. 
I've  hardly  written  to  them.  They  don't  even  know  that 
I've  been  ill." 

"  Very  well,"  she  said  reluctantly.  "  I  hate  your  being 
out  of  my  sight." 

"Afraid?" 

"  No.  Only  time  flies  so.  The  year  will  soon  be 
up." 

"  Time  enough  to  worry  about  that,"  he  said,  with  a 
sudden  twinge  at  the  bottom  of  his  spine.  Sooner  or 
later  he  would  have  to  face  his  own  world  and  give  an 
account  of  himself.  How,  if  Cora  would  not  let  him? 
She  had  changed  greatly  since  his  illness,  loved  him  more, 
claimed  more,  gave  more.  He  was  beginning  to  be  a  little 
afraid,  not  so  much  of  her  as  for  her.  Sometimes  he 
wished  he  could  hate  her  a  little,  but  he  had  never  been 
able  to  hate  very  well. 

It  was  rather  painful  to  him  to  go  to  Cherryman's  flat. 
So  many  times  had  he  climbed  those  stairs  with  Hardman 
and  Peto  in  the  days  when  they  had  run  like  frisky  colts 
through  London.  Even  more  painful  was  it  when  he 
entered  the  room  again,  for  it  was  exactly  the  same. 
There  still  were  the  collected  pictures,  the  collected 
books,  the  collected  people,  and  there  still  was  Cherry- 
man  obviously  thinking: 


THE  RUSSIAN  FLAVOUR  229 

"  How  happy  I  am !  How  happy  I  am !  What  de- 
lightful people." 

And  just  as  before  Cherryman  came  towards  him  shift- 
ing his  shoulders  and  wagging  his  hindquarters,  and 
saying : 

"Come  in,  my  dear.  ...  Isn't  this  delightful?  I'm 
so  happy,  though  my  conscience  is  weary.  Still  Dol- 
gorova  is  anxious  to  dance  for  charity.  She  is  a  pupil 
of  Karsavina's.  ...  I  must  introduce  you." 

The  room  was  full  of  tobacco  smoke,  and  it  was  too 
brilliantly  lit,  so  that  it  was  difficult  for  a  moment  or  two 
to  see  people  distinctly.  Trevor  found  his  hand  gripped 
and  heard  a  voice  saying: 

"  Hello,  Trevor,  old  man !  It's  an  age  since  I  saw  you. 
Where  have  you  been  ?  " 

"  In  London,"  said  Trevor. 

"  Nonsense.  You  couldn't  hide  yourself  in  London.  I 
bet  you've  been  to  Mesopotamia  or  Egypt  or  America 
with  Northcliffe." 

"  No,  no,"  said  Trevor ;  but  the  young  Guardsman,  a 
friend  of  Peto's,  insisted  and  decided  in  his  own  mind 
that  Trevor  had  been  to  America,  and  was  being  mys- 
terious and  important  about  it. 

"  When  are  they  coming  in  ?  Ah !  You  won't  say. 
Well,  it  doesn't  matter.  We're  all  writing  poetry  now. 
My  brother  does  it,  so  do  I.  We've  published  a  book. 
It's  frightfully  easy.  Isn't  it  queer  that  one  should  have 
had  such  an  awful  respect  for  it,  but,  of  course,  we  don't 
rhyme  nowadays." 

Through  the  smoke  Trevor  saw  the  head  of  his 
stranger  of  the  motor-car  on  the  Brighton  road.  He 
turned  away  from  his  poet  to  Cherryman,  and  asked 
excitedly : 


230  PINK  ROSES 


"  Cherryman,  who  is  that?  " 

"  Oh !  That's  Carline's  chief,  Trenham.  Do  you  want 
to  know  him  ?  " 

"  No,"  answered  Trevor.  "  No,  I  don't  want  to  know 
him." 

He  was  surprised  at  his  own  emphasis,  but  there  was 
no  doubt  about  it.  He  did  not  want  to  know  Trenham, 
who,  as  it  happened,  was  in  a  black  mood,  heartily,  vio- 
lently despising  the  people  among  whom  he  found  him- 
self. He  had  accepted  because  he  thought  Ruth  would  be 
going,  as  Sophina  was  her  friend.  So  he  looked  sourly 
on,  feeling  that  he  was  an  old  man,  at  the  same  time 
thanking  God  for  it  if  this  was  youth.  That  it  was  not. 
He  knew  that.  Ruth  was  youth,  but  nowhere  could  he 
find  anything  like  her.  The  only  person  in  the  room  who 
pleased  him  was  Trevor,  and  of  him  he  was  blackly 
jealous  because  he  too  was  young,  graceful,  handsome, 
easy,  and  had  a  forward  look  in  his  eyes.  And  suddenly 
he  too  remembered.  It  was  the  young  man  of  the  motor- 
car on  the  Brighton  road,  the  huge,  vulgar,  silver-fitted 
car  in  which  sat  the  large,  handsome,  expressionless-look- 
ing woman.  That  eased  his  jealousy  and  he  thought : 
"Some  actor!"  and  had  the  satisfaction  of  dismissing 
Trevor  from  his  thoughts.  Trevor,  on  the  other  hand, 
could  not  stop  staring  at  him,  resenting  his  own  dislike, 
for  Trenham  stood  out  as  a  man  of  quality.  However,  he 
was  soon  engaged  in  conversation,  passing  from  person 
to  person,  all  of  whom  with  a  long  face  talked  to  him 
about  Harry  Hardman's  poems.  At  last  he  reached  Mile. 
Dolgorova,  and  with  the  memory  of  his  Jews  still  power- 
ful upon  him  he  knew  her  at  once  for  what  she  was.  He 
placed  her  mentally  at  once  with  Mr.  Angel  and  Mr. 
Ysnaga,  and  because  of  them  felt  for  her  an  amused 


THE  RUSSIAN  FLAVOUR  231 

tolerance,  almost  an  affection  which  increased  into  a  real 
pleasure  in  her  society  when  through  her  rather  pretty 
foreign  accent  came  the  unmistakable  thick  Yiddish  accent 
of  Spital  Square.  (Trevor  had  heard  a  lot  about  that 
from  Mr.  Angel.) 

He  began  politely: 

"  We  miss  your  ballets,  Mile.  Dolgorova.  I  thought 
you  were  all  in  America.  The  Americans  get  the  best  of 
everything  nowadays.  I  suppose  they  can  pay  for  it." 

"  Aw  naw,"  said  Sophina.  "  I  stay  be'ind.  Which 
Ministry  are  you  in,  Mr.  Mathew?  " 

"  I'm  an  invalid,"  said  Trevor.  "  I  have  been  spared. 
You  must  find  England  quite  like  Russia  now  with  every 
one  an  official." 

"  Aw  yaus,"  said  Sophina.  "  Quait  laike  Russia, 
quait,"  and  she  nodded  vehemently.  She  was  not  very 
comfortable  with  Trevor.  He  was  not  like  Cafline  and 
Cherryman,  and  it  was  harder  work  keeping  it  up  with 
him,  but  in  another  sense  she  was  easier  with  him  because, 
unlike  the  others,  he  observed  and  was  interested  in  her 
real  personality  underneath  her  affectation.  This  was 
disconcerting,  but  she  liked  it.  He  was  a  challenge  to 
her.  The  rest,  she  knew,  would  be  pleased  and  charmed 
if  a  lead  were  given,  as  it  would  be  by  her  patron.  They 
could  not  be  critical  because  she  was  Russian. 

General  conversation  went  on  interminably  because 
Cherryman  was  so  convinced  that  everybody  was  happy 
that  he  could  not  bring  himself  to  interrupt,  and  Sophina 
began  to  scowl  and  tap  with  her  foot  on  the  floor.  She 
looked  daggers  at  the  other  women,  who  were  listening 
with  bored  politeness  to  the  young  men.  Trevor,  like 
Trenham,  had  given  it  up  after  a  while,  and  the  two  of 
them,  as  chance  would  have  it,  stood  apart  in  opposite 


232  PINK  ROSES 


corners,  both  glum  and  restive,  yet  neither  daring  to  be 
so  impolite  as  to  go  before  the  evening's  entertainment 
had  been  given.  At  last  Sophina  went  to  Carline,  and, 
in  the  extraordinary  jargon  which  she  had  invented  for 
his  benefit,  urged  him  to  go  to  the  pianola.  Every  one 
heard  the  word  pianola  with  relief,  and  one  end  of  the 
room  was  soon  cleared.  It  was  the  end  in  which  Trevor 
and  Trenham  were  standing  in  opposite  corners,  and  they 
gave  it  a  certain  theatrical  form,  the  more  so  as  they 
were  unconscious  of  having  been  drawn  into  the  show. 
Sophina,  however,  had  perceived  it  at  once  and  began  to 
dance  almost  as  soon  as  the  first  notes  of  Carnival  were 
sounded,  so  as  to  give  them  no  time  to  move. 

"  Ah !  Carnival !  "  sighed  some  one  in  the  audience 
settling  down  to  remembered  delights. 

Sophina  looked  remarkably  well.  She  had  cut  her  hair 
short  and  it  stood  out  in  a  bristling  brush  without  orna- 
ment of  any  kind,  and  she  was  dressed  in  a  modified  ballet 
costume,  the  skirt  of  which  came  below  her  knees.  She 
was  not  of  a  very  pronounced  Jewish  type  and  might  at 
a  pinch  have  passed  for  an  Italian  or  a  Caucasian.  Her 
Carnival  was  not  bad,  but  a  Columbine  without  a  Harle- 
quin is  a  little  banal,  and  she  did  better  with  a  trepak,  in 
which  her  racial  animal  spirits  could  let  themselves  go. 
Everybody  applauded,  and  she  was  wise  enough  to  leave 
it  at  that.  She  was  pressed  by  one  or  two  of  the  women 
to  dance  at  charity  performances  in  which  they  were  in- 
terested, and  that  was  what  she  wanted. 

Trevor  thought  the  time  had  come  to  make  his  escape, 
but  he  was  hemmed  in,  and  to  avoid  being  drawn  into 
conversation  again  took  up  a  little  brown  book  with  a 
futurist  cover.  It  was  called  London  Poems,  by  Sieg- 
mund  Finberg,  and  he  found  himself  mildly  interested  in 


THE  RUSSIAN  FLAVOUR 233 

them,  chiefly  because  they  brought  back  to  him  the  days 
before  the  war  when  young  men  had  screamed  cacopho- 
nously  for  violence.  Well,  they  had  got  it.  How  remote 
all  that  seemed!  And  how  appropriate  to  this  evening 
were  the  poems  of  S.  Finberg.  The  whole  evening  struck 
him  as  a  pathetic  attempt  to  re-capture  the  life  of  pre- 
war days  which  could  never  come  again.  What  was 
coming?  Life  could  not  stop  still  at  Mr.  Angel  and  Mr. 
Ysnaga  and  Cora  and  the  patriotic  Henry  Hobday. 

Sophina,  who  for  Carline's  benefit  had  every  now  and 
then  to  play  Dostoievskyish  tricks,  came  up  to  him  and 
snatched  the  book  out  of  his  hand  and  stood  staring  at 
him  in  defiance  to  create  one  of  those  Russian  psycho- 
logical moments  for  which  Carline's  soul  craved,  and  it 
was  more  psychological  than  she  had  reckoned,  for  her 
eyes  fell  on  the  hated  word  Finberg,  and  she  was  for  a 
second  no  longer  the  spoiled  and  petted  dancer  Dolgorova, 
but  the  embittered  and  vindictive  little  Jewess.  Trevor 
saw  that,  but  no  one  else  did,  though  everybody  felt  that 
things  were  somehow  awkward.  She  dropped  the  book, 
and  Trevor  picked  it  up  with  a  graceful  bow  and  a  kindly 
smile,  and  said : 

"  It  is  very  bad  poetry,  Mademoiselle.    Thank  you." 

"  I'd  like  a  drink,"  said  Mile.  Dolgorova  in  unmistak- 
able Whitechapel,  and  this  also  Trevor  was  the  only  one 
to  notice,  for  Carline  and  Cherryman  had  begun  to 
exclaim:  "Isn't  she  wonderful?  Ah!  the  Russians  are 
unspoilt!  They  live!  Such  passion!  Something  bar- 
baric and  yet  profoundly  religious  in  the  Russian  soul !  " 
And  these  phrases  were  echoed  on  every  side. 

Trenham  was  more  struck  with  the  ease  with  which 
Trevor  turned  the  situation  without  humiliating  Sophina, 
and  he  had  to  alter  his  mind  as  to  Trevor's  being  an  actor, 


234  PINK  ROSES 


but  his  jealousy  remained  and  even  increased.  He  felt 
resentfully  that  life  had  always  been  easy  for  the  young 
man.  He  was  used  to  London,  could  move  happily  in  it, 
select  instinctively,  and  had  not  to  grope  for  what  he 
wanted.  And  watching  Trevor,  wondering  about  him, 
relishing  his  qualities,  his  clean-cut  face  and  figure,  and 
unmistakable  charm,  Trenham  suffered  agonies  as  his 
passion  for  Ruth  Hobday  broke  through  the  enchantment 
in  which  it  had  hitherto  lived  and  set  him  reeling  as  it 
poured  through  him  and  demanded  contact  with  realities 
and  to  assert  itself  in  terms  of  society  and  humanity.  It 
was  so  sudden,  so  overpowering  that  Trenham's  jaw 
dropped  and  his  hand  went  to  his  throat,  and  he  felt 
stifled  in  that  atmosphere,  in  which  there  was  no  one 
who  could  feel,  who  could  understand  what  was  hap- 
pening to  him,  except  Trevor.  Against  his  will  Trenham 
had  to  walk  towards  Trevor,  who  moved  just  at  that 
moment,  and  escaped.  Without  saying  good-night  to  his 
host  or  a  word  to  Sophina,  Trenham  plunged  after 
him. 

"  My  chief  looks  out  of  sorts  to-night,"  said  Carline. 
"  Extraordinary  how  provincial  some  of  these  big  men 
are.  They  can't  get  used  to  London." 

"  You  see,"  said  Cherryman,  "  they  are  used  to  being 
cock  of  -the  walk." 

Trembling  with  an  unreasonable  rage,  Trenham  walked 
after  Trevor,  who  had  turned  down  to  the  Embankment 
Gate. 

"  Excuse  me,  sir,"  he  said,  as  he  caught  him  up  at  the 
Gate,  "  didn't  I  have  the  pleasure  of  meeting  you  on  the 
Brighton  road  ?  " 

"  Good-night,  gentlemen,"  said  the  gate-keeper,  touch- 
ing his  hat. 


THE  RUSSIAN  FLAVOUR  235 

Trevor  stopped,  and  wondered  why  the  question  should 
be  put  so  emotionally. 

"  Yes,"  he  said.  "  I  was  glad  we  were  able  to  help 
you  out  of  your  difficulty." 

44  My  name  is  Trenham.  I'm  from  the  North,  where 
we  are  a  little  more  outspoken  than  you  are  here  in 
London." 

"  So  am  I,"  answered  Trevor.  "  I'm  only  here  to  read 
Law." 

"Oh!     I  thought " 

"What?" 

"  I  thought  you  were  older." 

"  I  have  just  been  ill,"  said  Trevor.  "  That  may  ac- 
count for  it.  I  was  staying  down  at  Brighton  after  a 
queer  illness.  I  mean,  I  wasn't  very  ill,  but  the  war  got 
hold  of  me  and  did  what  it  liked  with  me.  It  was  every 
bit  as  bad  as  being  recruited  and  swept  out  to  France. 
I  mean  being  left  lying  to  find  out  some  meaning  in  it 
all.  It  was  like  being  squeezed  slowly  to  death.  .  .  . 
One  isn't  left  out  of  it,  you  know.  That  is  impos- 
sible." 

"  I  don't  know,"  said  Trenham.  "  There  are  thousands 
who  are.  Look  at  my  Ministry.  It  pays  for  the  fine 
dinners  they  would  have  had  if — if  we  hadn't  all  lost  our 
heads.  I  confess  I  don't  think  about  the  war.  I  suppose 
in  a  way  it  has  always  been  my  job,  getting  ready  for  it 
and  seeing  it  through.  I'm  paid  to  find  out  ways  of 
killing  people.  I  don't  turn  squeamish  when  the  people 
who  pay  me  begin  to  do  it." 

"  I  don't  think  about  it  either  now,"  said  Trevor,  who 
had  begun  to  like  the  big,  gloomy  man  striding  along  by 
his  side.  "  I  still  feel  it  as  an  enemy  that  may  get  me 
down  at  any  moment.  One  isn't  romantic  any  more,  and 


236  PINK  ROSES 


what  I  feel  is  that  the  danger  to  be  guarded  against  is 
not  the  killing  of  people — there  are  plenty  left — but  the 
moral  suppuration  which  is  poisoning  the  lives  of  those 
who  remain.  I  don't  know  what  to  do  about  it.  I  don't 
know  even  that  anything  can  be  done." 

"  You're  not  like  anybody  else  I've  ever  met,"  said 
Trenham,  and  his  heart  cried :  "  Except  one." 

"  Oh,  I  don't  know  about  that,"  said  Trevor.  "  What 
would  you  do  if  you  were  offered  the  run  of  a  million, 
and  a  park,  and  a  newspaper,  and  a  theatre?  ..." 

"If  I  were  young,"  said  Trenham — "if  I  were 
young  ..." 

But  he  lost  the  thread  of  his  thought,  so  violent  was 
his  jealousy  of  Trevor.  To  be  young!  To  be  like  Ruth! 
To  have  that  quality  of  conscious  courage  which  was  like 
a  new  thing  come  into  the  world.  .  .  .  Ah !  that  was  it. 
Conscious  courage!  If  he  had  had  it  what  would  he  not 
have  done?  He  would  never  have  been  entrapped  in 
the  vast  commercial  organization  which  had  gutted  his 
brain  and  thwarted  his  passion  for  pure  science,  never 
have  been  caught  in  marriage,  never  have  let  his  life 
trickle  away  up  North.  .  .  .  If  he  were  young  now  to 
face  life  with  Ruth,  if  he  were  like  this  boy  by  his  side 
who  talked  so  easily  of  profundities,  so  unconsciously  of 
truth,  of  things  that  had  always  been  true,  if  only  there 
had  been  time  to  recognize  them.  Time !  Time  ...  If 
only  Time  would  stop  now!  If  only  .  .  .  But  Trenham 
was  not  one  to  let  himself  be  swept  away  by  the  desire 
for  the  miraculous. 

"A  million?" 

"  Yes,"  said  Trevor.  "  All  made  since  the  war  by  a 
man  whose  profession  used  to  be  pawning  clothes.  He 
makes  them  now." 


THE  RUSSIAN  FLAVOUR  237 

"A  million?"  asked  Trenham  again.  "Well,  these 
are  surprising  times.  To  do  as  you  like?  " 

"  That's  my  trouble,"  said  Trevor.  "  He  is  a  Jew.  I 
should  be  expected  to  make  it  earn  a  profit.  On  the  other 
hand  a  Christian  would  not  have  made  the  offer.  As 
far  as  I  can  make  out  my  Jew  wants  to  make  a  splash, 
but  doesn't  know  how  to,  because  he  can't  understand 
ideas  or  idealism.  I  should  like  to  reform  the  newspapers, 
organize  the  book-market,  force  people  to  read  just  as 
they  have  been  forced  into  the  Army,  bring  the  theatre 
up  to  date,  and  create  all  kinds  of  means  by  which  the 
young  could  say  what  they  liked.  I  would  advertise  good 
things  just  as  the  idiots  who  now  run  the  bureaucracy 
advertise  bad  things.  .  .  .  It  is  all  very  chaotic  at  present 
in  me,  but  I  know  the  direction  in  which  I  should 
move.  But  it's  an  odd  thing  to  happen  to  a  man,  isn't 
it?" 

"  It  is  what  every  young  man  dreams,"  answered 
Trenham.  "If  it  happened  I  can  understand  that  one 
would  feel  stunned.  If  it  had  happened  to  me  when  I 
was  young  I  think  I  should  have  run  away  from  it.  I'm 
sure  I  should.  The  responsibility  is  too  great  except  for 
a  Jew  or  a  fool  who  has  no  idea  of  what  money  might 
do." 

They  had  walked  along  nearly  to  Westminster.  Tren- 
ham thought  of  the  night  when  Ruth  had  first  come  to 
see  him.  So  much  had  happened  since  then  to  alter  his 
life,  to  sift  it  and  leave  him  with  what  was  of  worth  and 
living  enough  to  be  handed  on.  .  .  .  He  wagged  his 
head  towards  the  Houses  of  Parliament,  and  said: 

"  Any  thought  of  entering  that  place  with  your  mil- 
lion?" 

"  It  isn't  mine  yet,"  replied  Trevor,  "  but  I  think  not. 


238  PINK  ROSES 


It  is  out  of  date.  I  should  want  to  invent  new  ways  of 
doing  things  to  stop  the  infernal  reiteration  that  is  going 
on.  It  makes  one  want  to  go  to  the  Front  to  find  quiet. 
Don't  you  think  there  is  something  in  that  ?  All  the  half- 
dozen  ways  of  looking  at  things  have  been  repeated  so 
often  that  at  last  they  have  all  become  exactly  alike. 
That  is  what  I  would  like  to  stop.  I  sometimes  think 
that  if  one  man  really  said  what  he  thought  and  was 
correctly  reported  by  the  newspapers  everything  would 
become  different.  But  no  one  can,  because  it  has  become 
impossible  for  anybody  to  think  anything  but  what  was 
thought  a  generation  ago.  That  has  been  so  stamped  on 
our  minds  by  repetition  that  we  simply  cannot  understand 
each  other  if  we  try  to  talk  individually  and  like  men. 
.  .  .  It  is  years  since  I  talked  to  anybody  as  much  as 
I  have  to  you  to-night;  I  used  to  get  angry  about  it, 
but  now  it  only  strikes  me  as  comic.  People  have  got 
into  uniform,  and  they  accept  that  as  the  answer  to  all 
their  problems.  .  .  .  I've  been  too  ill,  but  I've  bought  a 
dog  instead.  One  is  forced  to  do  something  to  avoid 
thinking." 

They  stopped  under  the  Abbey.  Trenham  had  been 
so  interested  in  Trevor's  eager  talk  that  he  had  thought 
of  inviting  him  to  North  Street  to  continue,  but  as  they 
crossed  Palace  Yard  Trevor  had  waved  his  hand  towards 
Whitehall  and  said : 

"  That  was  where  I  saw  you  first.  I  was  with  Cherry- 
man.  ...  I  find  more  and  more  that  life  is  made  up 
of  little  things  acutely  realized." 

Trenham  felt  uneasy.  The  keen  and  living  subtlety  in 
Trevor  was  a  thing  to  which  he  could  not  respond  though 
he  could  recognize  and  appreciate  it,  and  he  was  forced 
into  asking  himself  whether  these  young  people  had  not 


THE  RUSSIAN  FLAVOUR  239 

developed  new  powers  with  which  to  approach  and  ex- 
plore life.  He  had  often  had  a  suspicion  that  this  might 
have  happened,  but  in  Trevor  there  was  no  denying  it. 
The  only  question  that  remained  was,  how  far  was  he 
typical  ?  .  .  .  Ruth  and  Leslie  were  the  same  to  a  certain 
extent,  young  people  working  through  their  own  intuition 
and  bringing  to  the  surface  qualities  that  were  almost  un- 
recognizable. And  if  that  were  so,  if  the  young  had  new 
powers,  and  if  they  had  in  them  the  desire  to  make  of 
life  a  new  thing,  how  appalling  was  the  responsibility  of 
the  older  generation  in  forcing  upon  them  a  stereotyped 
course  of  conduct,  and  a  fearful  undertaking  dominated 
by  out-worn  catch-words,  phrases,  dusty  remnants  of 
ideas,  and  the  hysterical  self -hypnotism  of  demagogues. 
.  .  .  But  if  that  was  so  why  did  the  young  so  patiently 
accept  it?  Why  did  they  just  shrug  at  the  ruin  of  a  con- 
tinent? What  faith  had  they  to  sustain  them  and  to 
make  them  so  indifferently  allow  such  misery?  .  .  . 
Trenham  felt  sure  that  Trevor  could  give  some  sort  of 
answer  to  these  questions,  but  because  of  Ruth  he  could 
not  bear  to  ask  him  more.  He  had  found  in  Trevor  the 
clue  to  more  than  one  mystery  in  Ruth,  and  he  was 
afraid. 

They  stood  for  some  time  rather  awkwardly,  both 
puzzled  and  a  little  hurt  by  the  barrier  that  stood  be- 
tween them  because  they  respected  each  other,  and  had 
both  gained  a  great  deal. 

"  I've  enjoyed  talking  to  you,"  said  Trevor,  "  because 
you  don't  belong  to  a  mob  big  or  little."  He  laughed. 
"You  were  the  only  man  in  that  room  besides  myself, 
who  smelt  the  Jewess  in  Carline's  Russian." 

Trenham  gave  a  deep  chuckle  as  he  answered : 

"  Carline  is  my  secretary  and  Miss  Lipinsky  works  at 


24o  PINK  ROSES 


my  Ministry.  I  hope  I  haven't  brought  you  too  far  out 
of  your  way." 

"  Oh,  no,"  said  Trevor.  "  I  live  in  Shaftesbury  Ave- 
nue. It's  convenient." 

Trenham's  thoughts  floated  to  the  woman  in  the  silver- 
fitted  car.  Shaftesbury  Avenue  placed  her,  but  only 
added  to  his  perplexity  about  this  modern  young  man. 
It  was  scarcely  credible  to  him  that  Trevor  could  be 
enamoured  of  such  a  woman,  but  because  he  wanted  to 
believe  it  he  believed  it,  knowing  at  the  same  time  he 
was  doing  a  thing  of  which  his  young  friend  was  in- 
capable. Watching  him  walk  away  he  thought : 

"  He  walks  differently  too.  He  walks  as  though  he 
were  beautifully  dressed,  and  as  though  he  were  certain 
of  his  quality,  and  as  though  he  were  certain  that  cir- 
cumstances will  adapt  themselves  to  him.  .  .  .  But  that 
is  not  new.  .  .  .  Damn  it  all.  I've  caught  his  habit 
of  thinking  about  people  and  trying  to  find  out  what 
they  really  are." 

And  Trevor  too  had  been  moved  by  this  encounter, 
which  had  removed  the  last  vestiges  of  his  old  habit  of 
thinking  that  what  he  did  in  London  did  not  matter,  as 
his  real  life  was  waiting  for  him  up  North,  a  position 
into  which  he  could  easily  slide,  family  interests  and  ties 
which  would  quickly  absorb  him  and  make  him  "  safe." 
He  was  recognizing  slowly  that  this  was  the  very  last 
thing  he  wished  to  be,  and  his  insight  had  seen  in  Tren- 
ham  the  type  of  successful  Northerner  he  might  become, 
superior  certainly,  but  still  provincial  and  awkward,  in- 
tolerant and  reserved  and  suspicious.  .  .  .  With  Cora  he 
had  fallen  into  the  habit  of  living  for  the  moment  and  of 
not  thinking  of  the  rest  of  his  year,  but  Trenham,  redolent 
of  the  North,  had  brought  him  back  to  it  with  a  crash. 


XVII 
HENRY  HOBDAY  PROTESTS 

AFTER  the  visit  to  Brighton  it  was  some  weeks  before 
Trevor  returned  to  the  office.  He  could  not  bring  him- 
self to  make  the  customary  journey,  because  the  office 
seemed  to  him  a  part  of  a  life  that  was  dead:  not  only 
his  personal  life,  but  everything,  everything  that  sur- 
rounded it,  domestic  habits  first  and  strongest  of  all,  then 
education,  then  religion.  All  had  become  so  remote  that 
it  was  clear  and  distinct,  and  unreal,  so  that  he  gazed  at 
it  with  an  affectionate  tolerance,  and  thought  of  it  as  an 
old  man  thinks  of  his  childhood,  forgetting  suffering  and 
pain  and  remembering  moments  of  eagerness,  and  all  the 
more  easily  because  it  was  so  certainly  ended  that  nothing 
out  of  it  could  arise  and  insist  on  being  dealt  with. 
Trevor  had  exactly  that  comfortable  sense  about  it,  that 
the  old  world  in  which  he  had  been  so  fortunately  placed, 
was  dead.  Nothing  remained  of  it,  not  even  its  ideas, 
which  had  been  so  frayed  and  so  weakly  that  they  could 
not  keep  pace  with  the  practice  of  life,  so  that  for  a 
time  men  had  to  live  horribly  without  ideas.  .  .  .  People 
went  on  prattling  about  Socialism  and  Fabianism  and 
bureaucracy  and  democracy,  but  what  they  said  was  con- 
tinually mocked  by  events.  Military  experts,  financial 
experts,  social  experts,  all  prognosticated  and  all  were 
wrong,  ironically  and  laughably,  and  the  moulding  of 
opinion  remained  in  their  hands,  and  simple  people  like 
Mr.  Henry  Hobday  believed  them  all  invariably  from 

241 


242  PINK  ROSES 


day  to  day.  Therefore  Trevor,  who  knew  that  the  world 
according  to  Henry  Hobday  was  dead,  could  not  bear  to 
go  near  him  or  any  of  his  works.  The  only  thing  that 
attracted  him  was  the  big  African  case,  through  which  he 
hoped  to  find  out  more  of  the  early  life  and  adventures 
of  Mr.  Ysnaga,  and  it  was  not  until  he  remembered  how 
disconcerted  that  remarkable  individual  had  been  at  the 
mention  of  Mr.  Barnes  of  Hobdays  that  at  length  he  was 
able  to  conquer  his  aversion  and  resume  his  activities  as 
an  articled  clerk,  for  which,  in  his  heart,  he  knew  that 
he  was  too  grown-up.  .  .  .  That  was  it !  He  had  grown 
up,  and  the  world  of  Hobday  had  been,  and  was  still,  a 
world  of  credulous  children.  All  his  intolerance  van- 
ished, and  he  was  able  to  walk  as  usual  down  to  Charing 
Cross  Station,  buy  a  Daily  News  and  a  Daily  Mail,  and 
travel  by  District  train  to  the  Mansion  House,  from  which 
he  had  only  three  minutes'  walk. 

The  clerks  smiled  as  he  entered  the  outer  office,  and 
the  cashier  said : 

"  Good  morning,  Mr.  Mathew.  Well,  you  are  a 
stranger !  " 

"  I  feel  it,"  answered  Trevor,  with  his  pleasant  smile, 
which  made  the  new  office-boy  dart  to  open  the  door  for 
him. 

"  Thank  you,"  said  Trevor,  turning  into  the  dark 
passage  leading  to  the  room  dedicated  to  the  partners. 
He  almost  bumped  into  Mr.  Henry  Hobday,  and  said : 

"  O !    I  beg  your  pardon.    Good  morning." 

"  Trevor!  "  said  the  head  of  the  firm  in  a  deep,  severe 
voice.  "  Trevor !  I  wish  to  see  you  in  my  room  at  once. 
I  shall  be  back  in  a  moment." 

Trevor  went  through  the  door  on  which  was  written 
"  Mr.  Henry  Hobday,"  and  waited,  remembering  the 


HENRY  HOBDAY  PROTESTS  243 

alarm  with  which  on  previous  occasions  he  had  stood 
there.  How  foolish!  There  was  nothing  to  be  alarmed 
about.  The  old  man  simply  did  not  know  what  he  was 
talking  about,  and  was  as  ignorant  of  life  as  a  schoolboy 
or  a  monk,  but  it  was  precisely  that  which  had  been  so 
terrifying.  Such  dictatorial  confidence  had  come  out  of 
that  bland  imperturbable  ignorance  which  not  even  the 
war  had  shaken.  Mr.  Henry  Hobday  was  a  success  in  a 
world  of  failures,  now  for  years  dedicated  to  failure  in  a 
calamity  so  vast  that  it  almost  dubbed  the  universe  a 
failure,  but  served,  after  all,  to  emphasize  the  success  of 
Mr.  Henry  Hobday.  .  .  .  That  had  been  terrifying  to 
Trevor,  but  it  was  so  no  longer.  He  was  in  a  position 
of  experience  and  suffering  to  confirm  what  he  had  said 
to  Mr.  Henry  Hobday  on  a  memorable  occasion. 

The  head  of  the  firm  came  slowly,  treading  the  dark 
passage ;  every  step  heavily  underlined  a  painful  thought, 
a  carefully  pondered  censorious  phrase;  he  entered  the 
room  with  the  deliberation  of  a  captive  hippopotamus, 
sinking  into  its  tank,  and  Trevor  thought  of  himself  as 
a  sodden  bun  floating  on  the  water  which  would  presently 
be  swallowed  down  with  several  gallons  of  the  greenish 
liquid  which  was  the  monster's  native  element.  Mr. 
Hobday  sank  more  and  more  slowly  into  his  chair  until 
his  hindquarters  imperceptibly  and  almost  voluptuously 
touched  and  sank  into  the  Russian  leather  of  his  arm- 
chair. Then  in  a  rumbling,  sonorous  voice  he  said  : 

"  Trevor,  I  have  received  a  most  unhappy  letter  from 
your  mother,  and  I  wish  to  speak  to  you  as  man  to  man." 

"  Wait  a  moment,"  said  Trevor.  "  Why  should  my 
mother  write  to  you?  " 

Mr.  Hobday  looked  amazed.  This  conversation  was 
being  directed,  very  seriously,  by  himself.  He  was  not 


244  PWK  ROSES 


prepared  for  questions.  He  just  raised  his  eyebrows  with 
the  expression  which  had  put  the  fear  of  God  and  the 
firm  into  a  generation  of  clerks,  and  as  Trevor  was  silent 
he  assumed  that  it  had  had  the  desired  effect,  whereas 
Trevor  was  merely  taking  a  detached  interest  in  the  work- 
ing of  the  mechanism  of  this  phenomenon  which  he  had 
once  almost  revered.  What  absorbed  him  was  the  ob- 
vious fact  that  Mr.  Hobday  was  acting  purely  out  of  habit 
and  without  any  personal  feeling  whatever.  His  mouth 
opened  mechanically,  words  came  out  of  it  like  tin-cans 
out  of  a  machine.  They  clattered  almost  metallically. 
He  said : 

"  Trevor,  only  my  regard  for  your  father  and  mother 
makes  me  speak.  I  know,  we  all  realize  that  times  are 
not  normal,  and  if  you  were  in  the  Army  of  course  no  one 
would  say  a  word.  .  .  .  I  refer  to  the  manner  of  living 
you  have  chosen.  ...  I  should  have  thought  that  as  you 
had  been  spared  you  would  have  set  an  example  to  those 
who,  after  a  victorious  conclusion  of  the  war,  will 
return." 

"  That,"  thought  Trevor,  with  a  twinkle  in  his  eye,  "  is 
precisely  what  I  want  to  do." 

"  Your  private  life  is,  of  course,  your  own.  ...  I  am 
speaking  for  your  father's  sake.  Let  me  come  to  the 
point.  You  are  living  openly,  flagrantly,  with  a  notorious 
woman  of  the  town.  I  have  heard  my  clerks  sniggering 
about  it.  ... " 

"  I  happen  to  live,"  said  Trevor  acidly,  "  in  the  flat 
opposite  a  very  charming  woman  who  has  been  extremely 
good  to  me  during  my  illness." 

"  That  is  your  account  of  it." 

"  Certainly.  That  is  all  that  anybody  is  entitled  to 
know  or  to  discuss  about  me." 


HENRY  HOBDAY  PROTESTS  245 

Mr.  Hobday  blinked.  This  was  not  in  order.  It  was 
not  the  proper  move  in  response  to  his. 

"  But  what  is  one  to  think  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  Why  think  anything?  It  is  of  no  interest  to  any  one 
but  myself." 

"  And  your  mother  .   .   .  ?  " 

"  Please  keep  my  mother  out  of  it,  Mr.  Hobday." 

"  But  I  am  speaking  on  her  behalf  ..." 

"  I  decline  to  hear  you." 

Mr.  Hobday  rose  slowly  from  his  Russian  leather  chair 
and  laid  a  fat  hand  on  his  desk,  and  leaned  ponderously 
forward : 

"  Trevor,  I  implore  you  to  abandon  this  unseemly 
levity.  I  can  understand  a  young  man's  temptations. 
But  there  is  a  vast  difference  between  yielding  to  tempta- 
tion and  courting  ruin.  .  .  .  Once  let  a  woman  of  that 
class  get  a  hold  on  you  and  she  will  never  let  you  gc. 
.  .  .  And  I  implore  you  to  think  of  the  example.  You're 
a  young  man  with  responsibilities,  with  wealth,  position, 
an  honoured  name.  We  are  living  in  times  when,  owing 
to  a  variety  of  causes,  the  lower  classes  are  showing  signs 
of  being  extremely  restive.  What  will  they  want  to  do  if 
young  men  with  your  privileges  set  them  such  an 
example  ?  .  .  .  I  ask  you,  is  this — is  this  a  proper  prepa- 
ration for  the  life  you  will  have  to  live?  " 

"  Yes,"  said  Trevor,  with  his  frankest  and  most  boyish 
smile.  "  I  assure  you,  Mr.  Hobday,  I  loathe  visionaries 
as  vehemently  as  you.  And  if  I  were  vicious  I  should 
necessarily  be  hypocritical.  I  am  neither  the  one  nor  the 
other,  and  1  decline  to  discuss  the  matter  any  further." 

Again  Mr.  Hobday  sank  slowly  into  his  chair,  and 
again  his  hindquarters  caressed  the  familiar  Russian 
leather.  On  the  whole  he  felt  safer  sitting  down.  He 


246  PINK  ROSES 


thought  for  some  moments,  then  slowly  opened  the 
drawer  and  took  out  a  letter. 

"I  am  deeply  pained,"  he  said.  "To  justify  myself 
I  must  ask  you  if  you  would  mind  reading  your  mother's 
letter.  I  am  a  father  myself,  or  perhaps  I  should  not 
have  been  so  moved." 

"  Very  well,"  said  Trevor,  taking  the  letter  as  it  was 
held  out  to  him. 

DEAR  MR.  HOBDAY, 

Your  news  of  Trevor,  which  my  husband  has  given  me,  has 
pained  me  more  than  I  can  say.  We  had  not  heard  from  him  for 
some  time,  and  were  naturally  anxious,  and  your  letter  came  like  a 
bomb-shell.  We  did  not  even  know  he  had  been  ill,  though  his 
trustee  had  given  my  husband  a  hint  that  he  was  spending  a  great 
deal  of  money.  I  always  dreaded  his  going  to  London.  There  are 
such  dangerous  people  there.  1  know  Trevor  would  never  marry 
without  bringing  his  bride  to  me,  and  that  he  has  said  nothing  about 
it  is  the  most  reassuring  thing  left  to  me  in  my  grief.  I  know  you 
will  be  kind  to  him,  dear  Mr.  Hobday,  and  help  him  in  every  way. 
We  are  glad  he  has  been  with  you  these  years,  and  are  looking 
forward  to  his  return,  though  it  goes  to  my  heart  when  I  think  of 
the  other  mothers  whose  sons,  good  sons  and  bad  sons,  and  the  bad 
sons  are  perhaps  the  dearest,  have  gone  and  will  not  return. 

Yours  sincerely, 

ELINOR  MATHEW. 

Trevor  gulped  and  tears  came  to  his  eyes.  What  was 
the  old  fool  talking  about?  There  was  nothing  to  be  said, 
and  how  dared  he  attempt  to  interfere  between  mother 
and  son?  For  Trevor  the  one  clear  meaning  of  the  letter 
was  that  his  mother  trusted  him.  She  had  had  the  tale 
of  his  doings  twisted,  distorted,  and  made  horrible  by  this 
old  man,  and  she  trusted  him,  and  that  the  old  man  could 
not  see  because  he  trusted  nothing  and  nobody,  and  he 
offered  this  letter,  so  vital,  so  important  to  Trevor  as  jus- 
tification for  his  own  impertinence,  but  because  of  the 
letter  Trevor  could  not  be  angry  with  him.  The  man, 
after  the  fashion  of  his  kind,  had  simply  judged  without 


HENRY  HOBDAY  PROTESTS  247 

knowledge  of  the  persons  and  the  circumstances.  He 
misunderstood  Trevor's  silence,  and  thought  it  safe  to 
observe : 

"  I  could  not  feel  it  more  if  you  were  my  own 
son." 

44 1  have  nothing  to  say,"  replied  Trevor,  reluctantly 
handing  the  letter  back.  He  longed  to  keep  it,  so  precious 
was  its  humanity  to  him  in  its  healing,  vivifying  power. 

"  Why,"  he  thought,  "  that  is  just  what  we  are  all  after. 
Trust!" 

"  Come,  come,"  said  the  head  of  the  firm,  assuming  a 
man-of-the-world  manner.  "  As  one  man  to  another, 
don't  you  see  that  certain  rules  of  conduct  must  be 
observed.  Of  course  I  understand  what  London  is  like, 
especially  in  wartime.  No  doubt  the  lady  is  charming, 
but  why  let  anybody  know  ?  .  .  . " 

"If  you  don't  mind,  we  won't  discuss  it  any  more. 
Thank  you  for  letting  me  see  my  mother's  letter.  If  I 
had  done  anything  of  which  I  should  be  ashamed  to  tell 
her,  you  could  rest  assured  that  I  should  not  be  here  in 
your  office.  ...  If  you  don't  mind,  we  won't  talk  about 
it  any  more." 

"  I'm  only  asking  you  to  see  reason,"  protested  Mr. 
Henry  Hobday,  now  not  at  all  comfortable  in  his  role  of 
man  of  the  world,  to  which  Trevor  had  made  no  response 
whatever.  "  A  scrape  is  a  scrape,  and  every  young  man 
has  to  be  warned  some  time  or  other.  .  .  .  Come,  come, 
you've  had  your  good  time,  suppose  you  think  of  others 
for  once  in  a  way.  Once  you  get  mixed  up  with  people 
of  that  kind  there  is  no  knowing  where  it  may  end.  .  .  . 
Suppose  this  lady  should  insist  on  your  marrying  her?  " 

"  I  might  do  worse,"  said  Trevor,  out  of  pure  mischief. 
The  idea  of  marriage  had  never  entered  his  head. 


248  PINK  ROSES 


Mr.  Hobday  bounced  out  of  his  chair. 

"  You  fool !  You  young  fool !  Can't  you  see  the  risks 
you  are  running,  not  to  speak  of  the  opportunities  you 
are  throwing  away.  If  I  were  in  your  position,  with  the 
luck  to  be  left  at  home  while  other  young  men  were 
facing  death  and  terror  abroad,  I  should  be  making  a  full 
use  of  my  time,  getting  to  know  people,  working  out  my 
career,  making  myself  useful  to  people  in  the  swim  .  .  ." 

"  It  may  interest  you  to  know,"  said  Trevor,  "  that  I 
have  already  been  offered  the  use  of  a  million  to  do  as 
I  like." 

"  A  .   .   .a  million!  "    Mr.  Hobday's  jaw  dropped. 

"  It  is  not  quite  a  million  yet,  but  it  will  be  if  the  war 
goes  on  another  year.  I  am  to  help  to  spend  it." 

Mr.  Hobday  sank  into  his  chair  again,  and  after  a  long 
silence  he  said  archly : 

"  Ah !  SkO  you  haven't  been  wasting  your  time,  then. 
Quite  a  romance!  "  His  eyes  twitched  as  he  thought  of 
the  letter  he  had  written  to  Trevor's  mother.  "  Heigh ! 
So  you  are  out  for  the  big  game  for  all  your  quietness, 
and  there  was  something  in  the  brilliant  reports  we  had 
of  you  at  Cambridge.  Of  course  we  can't  give  dinner- 
parties nowadays.  ..." 

("  Thank  God,"  thought  Trevor,  who  had  suffered  at 
the  Hobday  dinners.) 

"...  but  if  you  are  free  any  evening." 

"  I'm  afraid  I  am  not  often  free,"  said  Trevor.  "  And, 
if  you  don't  mind,  I  want  to  write  to  my  mother,  and  it 
would  help  me  if  you  would  let  me  have  her  letter  to 
you." 

"  Oh,  certainly,  certainly,"  said  Mr.  Hobday,  staring 
in  credulous  amazement  at  this  mysterious  young  man 
who  had  plunged  into  London  life  and  come  up  with  a 


HENRY  HOBDAY  PROTESTS  249 

million  in  his  hands,  and  he  handed  him  his  precious 
letter.  Trevor  put  it  in  his  pocket-book  and  said : 

"Is  that  all?" 

"  It  is  a  load  off  my  mind." 

Trevor  smiled.  If  he  had  a  million  he  might  be  re- 
sponsible for  all  the  tenants  of  the  flats  in  Shaftesbury 
Avenue,  and  he  would  be  approved.  The  word  had  been 
enough  to  relax  the  stern  morality  which  had  confronted 
him  on  his  entry  to  the  sanctum  that  derived  its  air  of 
stolidity  from  the  Law  Reports  which  lined  its  walls. 

"  I  have  been  hasty,"  said  Mr.  Hobday,  who  by  now 
was  beginning  to  be  angry  with  himself.  "  I — I  was  only 
anxious  about  your  health.  Do  be  careful  of  yourself, 
dear  boy.  Your  frankness  has  put  my  mind  at  rest, 
entirely  at  rest.  It  has  been  my  unfortunate  experience 
that  ah! — people  so  rarely  tell  the  truth  about  them- 
selves." 

With  his  mother's  letter  in  his  pocket-book,  Trevor 
could  not  feel  angry.  He  was  elated  and  buoyed  up. 

"  That's  all  right,"  he  said.  "  We're  growing  up,  you 
know." 

"Eh?" 

Trevor  repeated  his  remark,  but  its  meaning  did  not 
penetrate  Mr.  Hobday's  mind,  which  was  reeling  under 
the  idea  of  a  million  pounds.  He  held  out  his  fat  hand, 
and  Trevor  shook  it,  though  its  contact  was  unpleasant 
to  him,  for  it  felt  like  a  bag  of  flour. 

Still  elated  he  strolled  through  to  see  Mr.  Barnes  to 
find  out  how  the  African  case  was  getting  on,  and  in  the 
outer  office  he  was  amazed  to  see  the  girl  in  the  grey  dress 
whom  he  had  seen  twice  before,  once  in  the  motor  on  the 
Brighton  road,  and  once  at  the  corner  of  Whitehall.  She 
was  in  some  distress,  and  she  winced  almost  imperceptibly 


25Q  PINK  ROSES 


when  she  saw  him,  for  she  recognized  him  without  being 
able  to  place  him,  though  she  remembered  him  as  the 
young  man  she  had  met  twice  before,  the  young  man 
whom,  in  the  old  Highgate  days,  she  had  taken  as  a  model 
for  Leslie.  He  stopped  involuntarily  to  stare  at  her,  gave 
her  a  bow  of  silent  apology,  and  passed  on.  .  .  .  She,  too, 
would  be  like  his  mother.  She,  too,  would  trust  abso- 
lutely. 

As  he  reached  Mr.  Barnes'  room,  he  remembered  Tren- 
ham — Trenham  and  that  girl !  Cora  had  said  :  "  Some 
City  man  and  his  typist !  "  Impossible !  .  .  .  Mr.  Barnes 
was  out.  The  heap  of  papers  in  the  room  had  grown 
higher.  Those  on  which  he  had  been  working  had  not 
been  touched  and  were  thick  with  dust.  .  .  .  Trenham 
and  the  girl  in  grey!  .  .  .  He  sat  down,  dusted  his 
papers,  but  was  restless,  wanted  to  smoke,  and  remem- 
bered that  he  had  left  his  pipe  in  Mr.  Robert's 
room. 

As  he  passed  through  the  general  office  he  asked  the 
cashier  who  the  young  lady  was.  The  clerks  tittered  and 
winked  at  each  other,  for  Trevor's  newly  acquired  repu- 
tation was  a  delight  to  them. 

"  That's  Mr.  Hobday's  niece,"  said  the  cashier. 
"  Daughter  of  his  mad  brother  Charles,  who  refused  to 
enter  the  firm.  She  used  to  come  here  fairly  often  before 
the  war,  but  she  hasn't  been  lately." 

"  Thanks,"  said  Trevor,  and  as  he  passed  through  the 
door  leading  to  the  partners'  rooms  there  was  an  audible 
titter.  He  went  into  his  own  room,  got  his  pipe,  and  was 
just  coming  out  when  through  the  half-open  door  of  Mr. 
Hobday's  room  he  heard  the  rumbling  voice  saying  in 
the  tone  of  a  political  speech : 

"  I  am  proud  of  the  boy!    Proud  of  him!    And  I  am 


HENRY  HOBDAY  PROTESTS  251 

astonished  that  you,  his  sister,  should  come  here  with  such 
a  request." 

"  But  he  is  only  just  seventeen." 

Ruth's  voice!  Trevor  was  thrilled  by  it,  glad  of  it. 
For  the  pleasure  of  hearing  it  he  could  not  move  away, 
but  stood  in  his  doorway  absently  filling  his  pipe. 

"  He  is  only  seventeen !  He  is  not  old  enough  to  under- 
stand !  He  only  went,  I  am  sure  of  it — because  he  was 
so  wretched  at  school.  .  .  .  He  is  a  clever  boy,  and  so 
sensitive,  too  sensitive.  He  complained  that  all  the  spirit 
had  gone  out  of  the  school.  There  were  only  old  men 
and  parsons  left.  All  the  young  masters  had  gone.  .  .  . 
I  tell  you,  uncle,  he  feels  more  than  ordinary  people. 
Young  people  are  more  sensitive  nowadays,  and  he  looks 
so  young.  They  ought  never  to  have  taken  him." 

"  Come,  come,"  replied  Mr.  Hobday.  "  Suppose  all  the 
sisters  and  wives  and  mothers  had  behaved  like  this  in 
the  old  voluntary  days,  where  should  we  be  now?  Of 
course  he  wants  to  fight  for  his  beautiful  sister.  You 
should  be  proud  of  him.  I  am.  I  am  as  proud  of  him 
as  if  he  were  a  son  of  my  own.  ...  I  will  see  that  he 
has  money  and  cigarettes.  ..." 

"  Be  quiet,"  said  Ruth.  "  You  don't  know  what  you're 
talking  about.  I  want  you  to  help  me  to  get  him  out. 
They  have  no  right  to  keep  him.  ...  It  was  a  sudden 
impulse.  I  know  he  is  horrified  now  at  what  he  has  done. 
It  was  something!  But  you  don't  understand,  you  don't 
understand  ..."  v 

"  If  he  is  over-sensitive,"  said  Mr.  Hobday,  "  the  Army 
will  make  a  man  of  him,  and  the  sooner  the  better,  as  he 
will  have  to  make  his  own  way  in  the  world." 

"  I  must  tell  you,"  said  Ruth,  in  a  cool,  deliberate  tone. 
"  There  was  a  terrible  quarrel  at  home.  Leslie  has  never 


2=;2  PINK  ROSES 


understood  father,  and  father  is  a  little  difficult.  But 
for  that  you  are  to  blame  ..." 

"  I  ?  " 

Trevor  slipped  back  into  his  own  room  and  stood 
quivering.  He  could  still  hear  their  voices,  but  not  what 
they  said :  his  booming  and  foolish ;  hers  quiet,  strong, 
purposeful. 

Ruth  said : 

"Yes;  you  should  either  have  helped  father  properly 
to  de  what  he  wanted  to  do,  or  you  should  have  left  him 
alone.  You  wanted  to  humiliate  him  and  you  did,  but 
you  humiliated  us  too.  What  had  we  done  to  you,  we 
children?  .  .  .  You  helped  to  make  us  poor,  and  then 
were  ashamed  of  us  because  we  were  poor.  You  had 
provided  for  us!  Two  hundred  a  year  and  a  parcel  of 
old  clothes  at  Christmas!  You  wanted  to  break  my 
father's  dreams  and  myjtnother's  pride.  You  did  neither, 
and  you  never  had  the  feeling  to  think  how  lonely  and 
helpless  we  were.  .  .  .  And  that  told  on  us.  The  weight 
of  it  fell  on  me  first  and  then  on  Leslie.  ...  It  has 
made  him  what  you  would  call  queer,  sudden  unac- 
countable plunges,  strange  fantastic  moods,  and  a  terrible, 
terrible  knowledge.  .  .  .  You  never  helped  us  then.  You 
won't  help  us  now,  and  so  I  must  tell  you  what  you  are 
and  what  you  have  done !  " 

Her  uncle  smfled  deprecatingly : 

"  You  are  still  only  a  child." 

"  I  have  worked  for  my  living  since  I  was  sixteen.  I 
am  a  woman  now,  and  women  are  beginning  to  under- 
stand what  it  means  to  trust  to  old  men  who  have  for- 
gotten how  youth  can  suffer  ..." 

Mr.  Hobday's  smile  widened,  and  he  said  very  indul- 
gently : 


HENRY  HOBDAY  PROTESTS  253 

"  In  wartime  we  are  none  of  us  quite  normal.  I  can 
well  understand  a  high-spirited  boy  not  willing  to  wait 
until  he  is  a  conscript.  There  is  stuff  in  the  Hobdays. 
You  should  be  proud  of  him,  my  dear.  He  is  quite  safe 
until  he  is  nineteen,  and  the  life  will  be  the  making  of 
him.  Indeed,  I  am  so  pleased  with  him  that  I  am  pre- 
pared when  the  war  is  over  to  send  him  to  Oxford  or 
Cambridge,  and  to  treat  him  as  if  he  were  my  own  son, 
and  to  give  him  in  this  office  the  place  that  would  have 
been  his  by  right  if  his  father  had  entered  the  firm."  He 
beamed  with  pleasure  in  his  own  generosity,  and  Ruth, 
acknowledging  it  as  such,  was  put  to  some  confusion  for 
a  moment  or  two. 

"  That  is  beside  the  point,"  she  said.  "  Leslie  isn't  an 
ordinary  boy.  It  is  very  good  of  you  to  offer  all  that, 
but  I  don't  think  any  of  the  young  people  want  to  accept 
life  ready-made  any  more.  ...  I  have  been  thinking  it 
over,  and  I  believe  that  it  must  have  been  in  my  father's 
mind  too  when  he  refused  to  do  as  his  father  wished,  and 
it  is  stronger  and  more  articulate  in  us.  I  simply  don't 
want  Leslie  to  waste  the  next  few  years." 

"  Waste !  "  exclaimed  Mr.  Hobday.  "  Waste !  In  the 
service  of  his  country !  He  is  in  khaki !  " 

Ruth  saw  that  her  uncle's  prejudice  was  impenetrable. 
It  had  been  drilled  into  his  mind  that  the  sole  duty  of  the 
young  was  to  accept  regimentation  in  silence,  and  Ruth's 
protest,  mild  though  it  was,  had  offended  him  almost  as 
a  breach  of  manners.  His  Morning  Post  that  day  had 
told  him  to  believe  that  every  fit  man  must  be  forced  out 
of  civilian  employment,  and  for  the  day  that  was  his 
thought  on  the  affairs  of  the  nation.  It  had  been  a  source 
of  some  uneasiness  to  him  that  he  had  no  son  to  give  to 
the  cause,  and  he  was  very  pleased,  in  his  strangely- 


254  PINK  ROSES 


working  heart,  that  his  nephew  had  so  pluckily  made  the 
great  sacrifice  before  it  was  asked  of  him.  He  said 
kindly : 

"  I  know  it  must  be  in  some  ways  a  disappointment  to 
you,  Ruth.  You  have  been  very  brave  and  you  have  done 
very  well,  but  we  must  all  suffer  if  we  are  to  maintain 
our  supremacy." 

Ruth  was  beginning  to  feel  irritable  at  his  constantly 
falling  back  on  newspaper  phrases.  Life  had  become  very 
real  to  her  lately,  and  rather  difficult,  and  Leslie's  sudden 
departure  had  made  her  feel  very  acutely  that  the  future 
was  in  danger,  that  nothing  was  being  done  to  safeguard 
it,  and  that  the  younger  generation,  gagged  and  unable 
to  utter  a  word,  had  been  betrayed.  Their  hopes  and 
dreams  were  at  the  mercy  of  innumerable  little  tyrants 
of  whom  Mr.  Henry  Hobday  was  the  type  most  near  to 
her  and  most  powerful  in  her  own  affairs.  It  was  some- 
how degrading  to  receive  a  favour,  even  justice,  at  his 
hands. 

"  Very  well,  uncle,"  she  said.  "  That  is  the  last  thing 
I  shall  ask  of  you.  ...  I  have  had  to  be  obliged  to  you 
all  my  life.  I  used  to  believe  the  fault  was  my  father's, 
but — don't  let  us  open  old  quarrels." 

She  opened  her  purse  and  took  out  the  half-yearly 
cheque  made  out  to  her  father  and  handed  it  over  the 
wide  desk.  Mr.  Hobday  took  it  up  suspiciously,  glanced 
at  it,  and  gasped. 

"  There  has  never  been  an  opportunity  before,"  she 
said.  "  In  time  the  whole  amount  shall  be  refunded. 
.  .  .  Good  morning." 

Mr.  Hobday  could  find  not  a  word  to  say.  Really! 
What  was  the  world  coming  to  ?  .  .  .  The  whole  morn- 
ing had  been  wasted  in  dealing  with  rebellious  young- 


HENRY  HOBDAY  PROTESTS  255 

sters.  With  extraordinary  rapidity  thoughts  flooded 
through  his  slow  brain:  A  million — Ruth — Marriage. 
.  .  .  And  he  remembered  that  young  women  were  apt 
to  grow  fractious  and  unsettled  as  their  marriage-time 
approached.  .  .  .  And  then  he  was  almost  honest  enough 
to  realize  that  he  wanted  that  million  in  the  Hobday 
family.  .  .  . 

"  Absurd !  "  he  said.  "  My  brother  .  .  .  your  father 
is  entitled  to  that  as  a  member  of  the  family.  It  was  my 
father's  wish.  .  .  .  However,  as  you  please.  ...  It  can 
accumulate  for  the  children  and  can  go  into  War  Bonds." 

For  a  moment  he  was  held  back  by  jealousy.  All  at- 
tempts to  interest  Trevor  in  his  own  daughters  had  failed 
lamentably,  and  it  was  just  like  the  irony  of  things  that 
the  idiotic  Charles's  daughter  should  be  a  beauty.  How- 
ever, he  conquered  that  and  repeated :  "  One  moment." 
He  heaved  out  of  his  chair  and  out  of  the  room,  and  by 
the  time  he  was  in  the  passage  had  persuaded  himself  that 
he  was  willing  to  risk  even  his  niece  in  the  fulfilment  of 
his  duty  towards  Trevor's  father  and  mother.  The  best 
tonic  for  a  young  man  engaged  in  sowing  his  wild  oats 
was  an  encounter  with  a  pure  young  girl.  He  opened 
Mr.  Robert  Treves*  door  and  said : 

"  Trevor,  can  you  spare  me  one  moment  ?  " 

"  Any  number,"  said  Trevor  genially. 

"  I — ah ! — want  to  introduce  you  to  my  niece,  Ruth." 

Trevor  was  in  the  passage  in  one  stride,  across  it,  and 
in  Mr.  Hobday's  room  before  the  eminent  lawyer  had 
swung  round  like  a  battleship  on  the  turn  of  the  tide, 
and  by  the  time  he  reached  his  room  Ruth  and  Trevor 
were  shaking  hands  and  smiling  at  each  other  in  recog- 
nition. .  .  .  Mr.  Hobday  pulled  his  nose,  and  said 
peevishly : 


256  PINK  ROSES 


"  You  ought  to  have  waited  for  me  to  introduce 
you." 

"  We  have  heaps  of  friends  in  common,"  said  Trevor. 
"  It  was  only  a  question  of  time.  We  were  bound  to 
meet." 

"  I  am  very  glad,"  murmured  Ruth,  with  a  half- 
frightened  glance  behind  her.  "  Very  glad.  But  I  must 
be  going  now,  back  to  my  Ministry,  you  know." 

"Are  you  in  the  same  Ministry  as  Cherryman?" 
asked  Trevor. 

"  No,  but  a  friend  of  his,  Mr.  Carline,  is  immediately 
above  me." 

"  And  Mademoiselle  Dolgorova?  " 

"Who?" 

"  Carline's  Russian." 

Ruth  laughed.    "  O !  Sophina !    She  is  my  assistant." 

"  May  I  suggest,"  said  Mr.  Hobday  benevolently — 
after  all  he  only  wanted  to  be  benevolent — "  that  if  you 
wish  to  discuss  your  friends  you  should  go  out  to  lunch 
now." 

"  Will  you  ?  "  asked  Trevor,  and  Ruth  nodded.  They 
left  the  pillar  of  Society  rubbing  his  hands  and  smiling 
to  himself.  .  .  .  Yes,  that  was  the  way  to  handle  these 
young  people.  Give  them  love's  young  dream,  and  they 
would  leave  serious  matters  to  their  elders  and  stop  fret- 
ting over  things  that  lay  beyond  their  understanding.  .  .  . 

Both  Ruth  and  Trevor  were  very  far  from  love's  young 
dream  as  understood  by  Mr.  Henry  Hobday.  They  were 
simply  delighted  to  meet  as  people  who  could  understand 
each  other.  Both  knew  at  once  that  they  spoke  the  same 
inward  language,  and  they  were  only  amused  when,  as 
they  closed  the  outer  door,  they  heard  the  cashier  say: 

"Quick  work!" 


HENRY  HOBDAY  PROTESTS  257 

"  I  can't  believe  it,"  said  Trevor,  as  they  walked  down 
the  stone  steps.  "  I  can't  believe  that  you  are  his 
niece." 

"  Nor  can  I,"  answered  Ruth.  "  But  my  father's  name 
is  the  same,  and  we  were  always  taught  that  the  world 
existed  for  the  Hobdays.  I  am  sure  my  uncle  believes 
that  the  war  is  being  fought  to  protect  them." 

"  Where  would  you  like  to  lunch  ?  I  feel  that  we  have 
a  great  deal  to  talk  about :  and  a  lot  of  time  to  make  up." 

"  I  .  .  .1  don't  think  I  ought  to  stay.  ...  I  have 
missed  a  whole  morning's  work.  I  have  never  done  such 
a  thing  before,  but  I  had  bad  news  this  morning  about 
my  brother.  He  didn't  come  home  last  night,  and  this 
morning  I  heard  that  he  had  joined  the  Army." 

"Oh!"  Trevor  was  keenly  alive  to  her  distress. 
"  One  forgets  that  that  is  going  on  all  the  time,  but  one 
ought  not  to  forget  it.  The  married  men  and  the  older 
men  make  a  fuss,  but  the  boys  are  going  all  the  time 
without  a  word." 

"  Straight  from  school,  without  having  lived,"  said 
Ruth.  "  And  my  brother  has  gone  before  his  time." 

Trevor  took  her  to  an  old  City  chop-house  in  which 
were  seated  old  types  of  City  clerks  and  merchants,  who 
stared  indifferently,  with  a  faint  shade  of  resentment  at 
the  handsome  young  couple  who  intruded  upon  their 
mustiness  flavoured  with  a  thick  stale  odour  of  cooking 
and  sawdust  soaked  in  beer.  At  the  very  top  of  the  house 
was  a  Ladies'  Room,  which  they  had  to  themselves.  It 
was  so  still  and  quiet  that  it  was  obvious  that  no  one  had 
entered  it  for  many  days,  and  it  was  some  minutes  before 
a  breathless  and  astonished  waiter  arrived  to  attend  them. 
Trevor  ordered  chops,  apple  pudding,  and  a  small  bottle 
of  claret. 


258  PINK  ROSES 


"  It  was  amazing  luck/'  he  said.  "  I  had  not  been  near 
the  office  for  weeks.  There  are  times  when  I  can't  stand 
it.  I  mean,  the  ruin  going  on  all  round,  and  old  Hobday 
— beg  pardon,  your,  uncle — doing  better  and  better.  I 
can't  stand  it.  If  he  has  to  pay  more,  he  makes  more, 
and  a  reduced  staff  doesn't  seem  to  make  any  difference 
to  him." 

He  was  not  particularly  interested  in  Mr.  Hobday,  but 
he  had  to  say  something  if  only  to  distract  her  attention 
from  the  new  pleasure  he  had  in  looking  at  her.  Her 
throat  and  her  lips  especially  fascinated  him,  while  her 
voiced  moved  him  almost  intolerably,  and  every  now  and 
then  he  had  to  gasp  from  the  novel  sensation  of  breathing 
in  her  presence  pure  air.  This  sensation  was  accentuated 
by  the  stuffiness  of  the  chop-house. 

From  the  windows  they  looked  into  a  narrow  city 
street,  and  through  the  windows  opposite  they  could  see 
men  and  girls  working  at  ledgers,  files,  rotary  machines, 
typewriting,  and  machines  for  addressing  envelopes. 

"  The  city  isn't  new  to  me,"  said  Ruth.  "  I  worked 
for  years  as  a  typist." 

That  knocked  at  Trevor's  heart:  he  had  been  trying 
to  pretend  that  it  was  not  she  whom  he  had  seen  on  the 
Brighton  road.  She  had  not  seen  him  on  that  occasion. 

"  Oh !  "  he  said,  a  little  crestfallen.    "  Did  you  like  it  ?  " 

"  Hardly.  But  we  were  desperately  poor.  My  father 
had  a  mania  for  chemistry,  and  before  the  war  that  was 
a  terrible  thing  to  have." 

The  waiter  brought  their  chops  and  fried  potatoes. 

"  Still,"  she  said,  "  I'm  glad  I  worked.  It  was  a  good 
preparation  for  what  I  am  doing  now — quite  important 
work,  if  war- work  is  important.  You're  not  against  the 
war,  are  you  ?  " 


HENRY  HOBDAY  PROTESTS  259 

"  One  might  as  well  be  against  an  earthquake,"  an- 
swered Trevor.  "  I  hate  the  waste,  and  I  hate  the  use  of 
public  powers  for  private  profit.  When  I've  said  that  I've 
said  all  I  have  to  say  about  the  war.  ...  I  want  to  talk 
about  you.  I  saw  you  once  when  I  was  with  Cherryman. 
You  were  wearing  a  grey  dress,  with  a  pink  rose.  .  .  . 
Your  brother  was  with  you,  too." 

Again  Ruth  looked  behind  her  with  a  half -frightened 
expression  in  her  candid  eyes  that  could  conceal  nothing 
and  counterfeit  nothing. 

"Are  you  afraid  for  your  brother?  You  needn't  be. 
If  he  is  under  age  you  can  insist  on  their  letting  him 

go." 

"  That  is  why  I  went  to  see  my  uncle  this  morning. 
My  father  can't,  and  my  uncle  won't,  do  anything.  You 
see,  they  are  both  Hobdays  and  obstinate.  That  is  why 
I  don't  think  the  war  will  ever  stop,  because  England  is 
full  of  Hobdays  who  won't  go  either  forward  or  back- 
ward, and  think  that  once  a  thing  has  happened  it  is 
unalterable  and  somehow  sanctified.  Once  a  thing  is  defi- 
nite, then  they  don't  want  it  changed.  ...  I  think  they 
are  very  simple-minded.  .  .  .  One  gets  into  the  habit 
of  thinking  of  them  as  'they' — as  though  they  were 
children  or  animals,  and  as  though  nothing  that  they  did 
was  binding  on  us." 

"  That's  just  it,"  said  Trevor.  "  It  isn't.  ...  I  say, 
you  are  thinking  the  same  things  as  I  am.  It  doesn't 
matter  what  they  do,  because  they  can't  bind  us.  I  mean, 
when  they  think  materially  we  think  spiritually,  so  that 
the  same  things,  the  same  words,  have  different  meanings 
for  us.  That's  true,  isn't  it  ?  " 

She  nodded,  her  cheeks  rosy  with  excitement,  and  her 
eyes  bade  him  continue. 


26o  PINK  ROSES 


"  They  haven't  risen  to  the  occasion,  and  we  have. 
That's  why  we  say  nothing.  We  know  that  we  are 
going  to  begin  all  over  again,  and  so  we  want  them  to 
ruin  and  smash  what  they  have  built  up  so  carefully. 
We  let  them  do  it  even  if  it;  kills  us,  and  we  don't  mind. 
We  don't  even  think  or  talk  of  revolution,  because  we 
know  that  the  revolution  has  happened  in  our  souls.  We 
believe  in  each  other  and  not  in  things  any  more.  We 
are  going  to  live  through  each  other  and  not  through 
things  and  property  and  external  values.  ...  I  haven't 
been  able  to  talk  about  it  to  any  one  before,  but  I  can 
to  you,  because  I've  had  something  splendid  from  my 
mother.  .  .  .  You  must  meet  my  mother.  She  always 
let  me  do  whatever  I  wanted  to  do,  even  if  at  first  sight 
it  looked  wrong.  .  .  .  You  know  we're  all  sick  to  death 
of  doing  easy  things  and  possible  things.  We  want  to 
try  for  the  unattainable,  and  to  dig  things  out  of  our- 
selves instead  of  mopping  up  everything  we  see  like  pup- 
pies. .  .  .  Am  I  boring  you?  I'm  so  excited." 

"  No,  no,"  said  Ruth.  "  Go  on.  Do  go  on.  It  has 
happened.  I  know  it  has  happened.  That  is  why  it  is 
so  exhausting  until  the  diplomatists  make  up  their  minds 
that  they  must  do  what  the  financiers  tell  them.  We 
want  to  get  on  with  the  things  that  matter." 

"  The  onl}r  things  that  matter,"  interrupted  Trevor, 
"  are  people — real  people." 

"  My  brother,"  said  Ruth.  "  That  is  why  I  mind  so 
terribly.  He  would  have  been  one  of  your  people.  .  .  . 
All  the  boys  and  girls  have  it  in  them.  They  all  want 
to  understand  each  other." 

"  You're  not  drinking  anything.  Suppose  we  drink  a 
toast :  '  To  the  young  people  and  the  revolution  in  their 
souls'  .  .  Pink  roses!" 


HENRY  HOBDAY  PROTESTS  261 

"  Why  did  you  say  that?  "  asked  Ruth. 

"  Some  day  I'll  tell  you.  ...  I  mean  little,  tight  rose- 
buds, like  the  one  you  were  wearing  that  day  in  White- 
hall." 

Ruth  looked  out  of  the  window  and  a  troubled  expres- 
sion crossed  her  eyes. 

"  I  know  that  what  you  say  is  true.  ...  It  makes  one 
long  for  everybody  to  stop  talking.  Then  we  could  hear 
only  the  guns.  They  would  soon  die  down  if  we  were 
allowed  to  hear  them.  .  .  .  And  then  I  should  like 
silence  for  a  long  time,  and  after  that  to  hear  faintly  the 
new  song  breaking  like  the  dawn." 

"  I  think  it  will  happen  like  that,"  said  Trevor  simply. 
"  The  fools  will  go  on  talking — Leagues  of  Nations, 
Socialism,  Imperialism,  Social  Revolution,  but  we  shan't 
hear  them.  We  shall  be  listening  for  that  which  will 
silence  even  the  fools.  .  .  .  Nothing  else  matters." 

Ruth  turned  her  eyes  full  on  him,  and  said: 

"  I  am  glad  that  you  are  free." 

"  And  I  am  glad  that  you  are,"  he  replied. 

And  that  is  how  people  win  their  freedom,  by  acknowl- 
edging it  in  each  other. 

They  sat  on  in  silence,  there  was  no  frothiness  in  either 
of  them.  The  word  "  Love  "  never  entered  their  minds. 
They  were  not  even  conscious  of  each  other  as  man  and 
woman,  but  only  as  human  beings.  ...  It  was  delight- 
fully appropriate  that  this,  their  first  taste  of  the  new 
intercourse  that  had  become  possible  should  have  been 
given  to  them  in  an  old  musty  eating-house  in  the  very 
heart  of  the  world's  largest  market-place. 

"  What  will  you  be?  "  asked  Ruth. 

"What  should  I  be  except  myself?"  asked  Trevor, 


262  PINK  ROSES 


and  she  felt  that  she  was  rebuked,  and  was  even  so  both 
ashamed  of  and  annoyed  with  herself. 

"  I  sometimes  think,"  he  said,  "  that  the  war  is  the 
old  men's  odd  way  of  acknowledging  the  spiritual  revolu- 
tion. They  wanted  to  give  it  material  expression.  No 
wonder  they  are  in  a  mess  and  can't  realize  it.  You  see, 
they  haven't  a  clue,  and  we  have." 

"  Thank  you.    You  are  very  fortunate." 

"How?" 

"  You  can  find  words." 

He  grinned  mischievously. 

"  That's  my  danger,"  he  said.  "  I  am  always  apt  to 
talk  too  much." 

"  But  you  don't.  .  .  .  You  haven't.  ...  I  didn't 
mean  that." 

"  I  know  you  didn't.  .  .  .  Can  I  help  you  on  with  your 
coat?  .  .  .  I've  come  to  an  end  of  my  capacity  for  idle- 
ness, and  I  must  go  back  to  work." 

"  Can  you  bear  a  lawyer's  office?  " 

"  I  am  going  to  spend  my  life  in  one.  .  .  .  May  I 
write  and  arrange  another  meeting." 

"  Please.  .   .   .  Only  not  very  soon.  ..." 

He  understood  her.  She  wanted  to  take  stock  of  her 
life,  even  as  he  did. 

To  their  amazement  they  found  when  they  reached  the 
ground  floor  that  it  was  after  half -past  four. 

Trevor  laughed,  and  said : 

"  So  much  for  my  desire  to  work.  I  shall  just  be  in 
time  for  tea  at  the  office." 

"So  will  I,"  said  Ruth.  "I  shall  be  in  time  for 
Sophina's  third  tea.  .  .  .  Good-bye.  Thank  you  so 
much." 

He  helped  her  to  mount  a  'bus  and  stood  by  the  Man- 


HENRY  HOBDAY  PROTESTS  263 

sion  House  watching  it  as  it  moved  away  into  the  gather- 
ing grey  twilight  that  filled  Queen  Victoria  Street.  He 
was  aflame  with  joy,  and  it  seemed  to  him  that  soon,  very 
soon,  light  must  begin  to  break,  and  the  familiar  scene, 
sordid  in  its  pompous  heaviness — the  City  of  London, 
indolent  in  its  wealth — must  be  illumined  and  trans- 
figured. He  was  so  quick  with  joy  that  even  his  idealism 
seemed  a  joke  to  him,  a  spirit  that  moved  in  him  as 
easily  and  with  as  living  a  force  as  the  blood  in  his 
veins. 


XVIII 
RUTH  AND  TRENHAM 

As  she  was  carried  westward  through  the  grey  London 
light  Ruth  could  laugh  at  the  unreasoning  impulse  which 
had  made  her  go  to  her  uncle  to  ask  him  to  sympathize 
and  help  her  with  her  overpowering  desire  to  save  her 
brother  from  the  holocaust.  It  was  foolish  of  her.  How 
could  her  uncle  sympathize?  For  him  the  war  was  a 
thing  that  had  happened,  an  end  in  itself,  an  answer  to  all 
questions,  religious,  political,  social.  For  him  the  don- 
ning of  uniform  was  a  symbol  of  noble  acquiescence 
which  was  indubitably  right.  To  admit  the  possibility 
of  another  point  of  view  would  be  for  him  to  admit  the 
possibility  of  doubt,  and  an  act  of  blasphemy.  He  had 
ascribed  her  desire  to  save  Leslie  to  womanish  weakness, 
and  had  been  indulgently  kind  about  it.  That  was  as 
far  as  he  could  go.  The  war  was  to  him  something  which 
the  younger  generation  could  not  even  begin  to  under- 
stand because  they  had  to  deal  with  facts  while  he  lived 
in  serene  enjoyment  of  its  splendid  fictions.  They  had 
to  follow  it  through  all  its  phases  while  his  mind  re- 
mained in  the  intoxication  of  the  first  few  weeks  working 
with  the  ideas  proper  to  the  campaigns  in  the  Transvaal, 
Afghanistan,  and  even  the  Crimea.  Reiteration  which 
made  the  young  increasingly  incredulous  glued  him  up  in 
his  inappropriate  notions.  The  misunderstanding  was 
complete. 


RUTH  AND  TRENHAM  265 

Ruth  had  suffered  from  it  in  other  directions,  but  she 
had  never  clarified  it  until  her  few  hours  of  complete 
understanding  with  Trevor.  He  had  forced  her  to  admit 
her  own  thoughts  and  to  realize  the  tension  in  which  she 
lived  as  day  by  day,  minute  by  minute,  her  desire  for 
life  in  accordance  with  what  she  believed  was  thwarted 
by  the  general  activity  as  to  the  validity  of  which  she  was 
profoundly  sceptical.  .  .  .  How  dull  the  streets  had 
become!  The  Colonial  soldiers  sauntering  up  and  down 
the  Strand  filled  her  with  pity,  so  lost  they  looked,  so 
innocently  bewildered,  though  in  that  they  were  like 
everybody  else,  except  that  they  were  bewildered  without 
suffering,  whereas  the  Londoners  showed  in  their  faces 
the  strain,  the  almost  painful  dull  anger  as  the  face  of 
their  city  was  changed  and  their  hospitality  was  put  to  an 
intolerable  test.  .  .  .  Ruth  could  remember  the  warm 
immoderate  generosity  with  which  the  Belgian  refugees 
had  been  welcomed,  but  after  them  had  come  the  deluge, 
from  the  provinces  and  all  parts  of  the  world  until 
London  was  no  more  and  its  old  habits  were  swept  away 
and  it  had  become  only  a  kind  of  clearing-house,  and 
Ruth,  like  a  good  Londoner,  resented  the  loss  of  dignity 
in  the  great  city.  The  astonishing  events  of  this  great 
day  in  her  life  made  her  aware  of  that  resentment,  and 
also  revealed  to  her  how  narrow  and  circumspect  her 
existence  had  become,  how  hopeless,  and  without  thought 
for  the  future.  Her  brother's  plunge  had  been  the  last 
straw.  She  had  clung  to  him  as  the  being  through  whom 
the  slow  havoc  of  the  present  would  be  repaired,  and 
when  he  was  taken  from  her  she  had  been  overcome  by 
despair.  She  could  no  longer  pretend.  Her  life,  like  mil- 
lions of  other  lives,  was  thwarted,  and  it  was  only  an 
aggravation  to  know  that  she  was  one  of  millions.  The 


266  PINK  ROSES 


calm  gaiety,  the  affected  air  of  efficiency  in  which  other 
women  took  refuge  were  impossible  for  her.  In  them 
she  could  find  no  fulfilment,  and  that  for  her  was  essen- 
tial. .  .  .  And  then  suddenly,  in  her  uncle's  office  of  all 
places,  she  had  understood  and  been  understood  by  an- 
other human  being,  and  she  knew  that  she  had  been  wrong 
to  chafe  against  the  phantasmagoria  of  the  war.  That 
would  pass  as  the  old  ideas  passed,  and  there  would  be 
life  again  on  the  terms  of  those  who  had  the  courage  and 
the  patience  not  to  surrender.  So  great  was  the  relief 
of  her  experience  that  she  had  no  detailed  memory  of 
Trevor  or  of  anything  that  he  had  said.  The  shock  of  the 
delight  had  been  as  great  as  the  shock  of  tragic  news,  and 
it  had  left  her  almost  dazed  mind  without  control  of  the 
emotions  and  impressions  which  for  many  many  months 
had  lain  dormant  in  her  and  now  suddenly  forced  their 
way  out.  And  as  the  minutes  went  by  her  condition 
became  only  the  more  painful.  As  she  reached  the  Min- 
istry and  entered  it,  she  began  to  watch  herself  critically 
and  a  little  contemptuous  as  the  Ruth  Hobday  who  had 
been,  the  egoistic,  confident,  obdurate  young  woman  who 
had  a  confirmed  and  vicious  habit  of  managing  and  of 
making  others  live  and  act  according  to  herself,  by  virtue 
of  her  own  strength  of  personality,  and  her  own  fixed 
will.  ...  A  fine  triumph  that,  to  have  forced  her  way 
up  out  of  suburban,  poor  g-entility  into  a  position  of  some 
confidence  and  power  in  this  new  society  of  genteel 
persons  which  had  gathered  round  the  War  Govern- 
ment. 

As  she  had  foretold,  she  found  Sophina  making  her 
third  tea.  Sophina  looked  at  her  crossly,  and  said : 

"  I  do  think  you  might  have  let  us  know  you  weren't 
coming.  Sir  Seymour  has  been  pacing  in  and  out  like 


RUTH  AND  TRENHAM  267 

a  caged  puma  all  day  long.  .  .  .  I've  done  my  best,  but 
you  know  I  can't  read  your  shorthand,  and  you  and  he 
have  your  own  ways." 

"  I'm  sorry,"  said  Ruth,  taking  off  her  hat.  "  I  had 
to  go  to  the  City.  I've  had  bad  news.  My  brother  has 
gone  into  the  Army." 

"  I  shouldn't  worry  about  that,"  said  Sophina.  "  The 
war's  going  to  be  over  soon.  Down  in  the  East  End 
there's  great  goings-on.  They  say  Russia's  out  of  the 
war  and  there's  going  to  be  a  Revolution.  .  .  .  Oh!  I 
wish  I  could  be  in  it." 

Ruth  could  not  help  smiling.  Sophina  by  now  took  her 
Russian  history  quite  seriously. 

"  It's  a  bit  thick,  though,"  said  Sophina,  glad  to  chat- 
ter, for  she  had  been  alone  nearly  all  day,  "  the  way  they 
take  every  one  into  the  Army  but  those  who  ought  to 
go.  I  could  tell  you  of  East  End  Jews.  ..." 

"  No,  no,"  said  Ruth. 

"  Yes,  I  could.  I  could  tell  you  what  they  do  to  them- 
selves to  get  out  of  it.  It's  only  in  this  country  that  they 
take  conscription  so  seriously.  The  people  who  live  in 
Russia  and  Germany  and  France  know  all  about  it.  If 
I'd  known  about  your  brother  I  could  have  ..." 

"  Please  stop !  "  cried  Ruth.  "  My  brother  has  gone  of 
his  own  accord." 

"Well,  I  never!" 

"  It  has  made  me  hate  the  war  so  that  I  don't  think 
I  can  even  stay  here." 

"Oh,  don't  be  a  mug!  What  about  the  girls  who've 
only  been  married  for  a  week  ?  ...  Be  sensible.  No- 
body's left  you  a  fortune,  have  they?  Money's  money, 
and  it's  no  good  nosing  round  trying  to  find  out  what  they 
give  it  you  for.  I'm  going  to  off  it  as  soon  as  I  can,  but 


268  PINK  ROSES 


two-ten  is  two-ten,  and  besides  there's  more  in  it  than 
that." 

She  said  this  with  two  or  three  emphatic  nods. 

The  door  leading  to  Trenham's  room  opened,  and  he 
came  in. 

"  I  think  Mr.  Carline  wants  you,  Miss  Lipinsky,"  he 
said. 

With  a  nod  at  her  teapot  Sophina  gathered  up  some 
minutes  she  had  been  typing,  and  left  the  room. 

"  What  is  the  matter  ?  Has  anything  happened  ?  It 
was  not  like  you  not  to  let  me  know,"  said  Trenham.  "  I 
have  been  nearly  frantic  with  anxiety." 

He  tried  to  seize  her  hands,  but  she  withdrew  them. 

"  I  telephoned  your  father  at  the  laboratory.  .  .  .  He 
thought  you  were  here  as  usual.  Where  have  you  been  ?  " 

"  To  my  uncle's." 

"  Is  anything  wrong?  " 

"  Everything.    You  know  it." 

"No,  no  ...  Ruth,  you  ..." 

"  You  know  it  is  wrong." 

"  We  can't  talk  about  it  here.  .  .  .  Let  us  dine  to- 
night ...  at  North  Street." 

"  No." 

"  Out  then." 

"We  might  be  seen.  It  was  you  who  were  always 
afraid  of  that.  Now  it  is  my  turn." 

"  For  God's  sake  tell  me  what  has  happened." 

"  It  is  Leslie.  I  don't  know  how  it  all  came  about.  It 
was  my  fault,  I  think.  We  were  talking  about  what  he 
would  do,  and  I  said  you  would  help  him.  I'm  sure  that 
was  it.  He  quarrelled  with  my  father  and  said  terrible 
things  to  him,  told  him  he  had  always  lived  on  charity, 
and  was  being  employed  out  of  charity.  ...  Is  it  true  ?  ' 


RUTH  AND  TRENHAM  269 

"  No,  of  course  not.    He  is  doing  very  useful  work." 
"  But  his  great  invention — has  that  been  used  ?  " 

«   T  » 

"  You  know  it  has  not." 

"  My  dear,  dear  child — please,  please  ..." 

"  Leslie  knew  it.  He  always  knew  it.  He  knew  we 
were  in  a  false  position.  .  .  .  You  can't  deceive  the 
young  people.  They  are  terrible  .  .  .  terrible.  .  .  . 
After  his  quarrel  with  my  father,  Leslie  asked  me  point- 
blank  if  you  were  paying  his  school  fees.  ...  Of  course 
you  are  not,  but  he  is  so  suspicious.  He  won't  believe 
even  me,  even  me.  .  .  .  And  he  went  and  joined  the 
Army,  a  boy  like  that — and  they  have  taken  him  ..." 

"  How  ridiculous  it  all  is,"  said  Trenham  kindly. 
"  Don't  worry,  my  darling.  We'll  soon  get  him  out. 
Why  didn't  you  come  straight  to  me?  You  could  have 
saved  yourself  all  this,  and  me  to-day's  agony." 

Ruth  stood  up  and  looked  him  straight  in  the  eyes. 

"  I  want  to  know,"  she  said.  "  Did  you  ever  use  my 
father's  invention  ?  " 

"  There  was  an  idea  in  it." 

"  Has  it  been  used  ?  " 

"  It — it  may  have  been." 

"  Is  he  paid  by  the  Government  or  by  you  ?  " 

"  By  the  Government,  of  course.  He  is  very  useful — 
really.  Why  do  you  stand  there  like  an  accusing  angel  ? 
— a  very  lovely  one." 

"  I'm  not  accusing  you,  Seymour.  I'm  accusing  my- 
self. I  haven't  any  right  to  accuse  anybody  but  myself." 

He  understood  at  last  that  she  was  serious. 

"  Ruth,  that's  all.  I  don't  know  what  to  say.  I'm 
— I  only  know  that  it  has  been  the  first  real  happiness  I 
have  ever  known.  ,  .  What  has  all  this  nonsense  about 


270  PINK  ROSES 


your  father  to  do  with  that  ?  I'd  worked  with  him  when 
I  was  young.  He  was  a  good  man  then,  and  I  wanted  to 
help  you.  ...  Is  that  a  crime,  to  want  to  help  ?  Is  it  ? 
.  .  .  You  stand  there  with  your  eyes  accusing  me  .  .  ." 

"Not  you  .  .  .  Not  you  ..." 

Ruth  was  staring  at  him,  staring,  staring,  taking  in 
every  detail  of  his  features,  the  strong,  heavy  jowl,  the 
sensitive  lips,  the  unhappy  hungry  eyes,  and  she  was  filled 
with  pity  for  him  and  knew  that  she  had  always  pitied 
him,  so  profoundly,  so  passionately  indeed,  in  response 
to  his  passion,  that  she  had  forgotten  herself  in  him. 

"  I  swear  to  you,  Ruth,"  he  said,  "  that  I  have  loved 
you  with  the  only  love  of  my  life.  It  has  not  been  a  light 
thing.  ...  I  stole  the  rose  from  your  grey  dress  that 
Sunday.  I  thought  that  would  be  enough,  so  great  and 
pure  was  my  love.  But  I  wanted  you.  I  wanted  you 
in  my  house.  You  made  it  perfect,  alive,  the  glorious 
answer  to  all  the  damned  vulgarity  and  hypocrisy  of  life 
as  it  is  now.  ...  It  has  not  been  a  little  thing.  I  want 
it  to  be  greater  still.  I  shan't  go  back.  I'd  been  planning 
everything.  I  didn't  want  to  tell  you  yet.  The  little 
house  is  to  be  yours,  always  yours.  Everything  that  I 
'have,  everything  that  I  am,  is  yours." 

She  shook  her  head  slowly  from  side  to  side,  and  tears 
of  utter  misery  rolled  down  her  cheeks.  It  was  she  who 
was  at  fault,  because,  pitying  him,  she  could  not  take 
what  he  had  to  give,  the  passion  stored  up  through  his 
life  for  the  being  in  whom  he  should  find  the  quality  he 
had  always  idolized.  That  pity  had  left  her,  and  she  was 
rilled  with  loathing  of  it,  the  blind  egoistic  passion.  .  .  . 
How  dared  she,  how  dared  any  human  being  pity  an- 
other? To  understand  and  to  love :  yes,  that  was  healthy, 
that  was  strong,  but  pity  was  weak  and  destructive,  an 


RUTH  AND  TRENHAM  271 

emotion  only  of  illusions.  She  had  deceived  herself,  she 
had  deceived  him,  out  of  pity.  .  .  .  She  tottered  towards 
him: 

"Oh,  Seymour,  forgive  me  ..." 

"  My  beautiful,  beautiful  Ruth.  There  is  no  question 
of  forgiveness.  I  love  you.  I  swear  I  will  make  you 
happy.  ...  I  swear  ..." 

"  No.  No.  No.  No.  No.  Not  that  ...  I  have 
lied  to  you.  ...  I  have  lied  to  you.  ...  I  don't  love 
you." 

He  placed  his  hand  roughly  over  her  mouth  in  an  at- 
tempt to  silence  her,  and  stood  staring  horribly,  incredu- 
lously, into  her  eyes,  and  against  the  enormous  powerful 
strength  in  his  hand  she  nodded  and  went  on  nodding  in 
her  agony  to  force  out  the  truth  between  her  and  him. 
He  forced  her  head  back  until  she  had  to  close  her  eyes, 
and  he  said  between  his  teeth : 

"  I  knew  this  was  bound  to  come.  I  thought  the  time 
would  come  when  I  should  have  to  master  you.  .  .  .  You 
are  mine ;  do  you  hear  ?  Mine !  You're  young  ..." 

At  last  she  could  resist  no  more  and  stood  breathlessly 
still.  Ah !  That  was  clear  gain,  not  to  resist  and  to  let 
his  will  rush  through  her  and  find  no  answering  will  in 
her.  It  was  he  then  who  weakened.  He  let  her  go  and 
staggered  away  from  her,  refusing  to  admit  what  she  had 
told  him  without  a  word.  He  had  loved  her,  worshipped 
her,  idealized  her,  and  he  would  not  believe  that  she  had 
gone  from  him. 

She  had  recovered  herself,  and  was  determined  to 
understand  and  to  forestall  every  movement  as  it  took 
place  in  him.  He  was  old,  he  belonged  to  the  old  world, 
in  which  men  and  women  had  understood  almost  every- 
thing but  themselves.  For  his  sake  she  had  plunged 


272  PINK  ROSES 


down  into  that  old  world,  but  now  she  had  climbed  out 
of  it  again,  and  she  was  the  stronger  and  the  better  for 
her  understanding  of  it. 

She  said : 

"  I  want  to  tell  you  everything,  Seymour.  I  will  dine 
with  you  to-night  if  you  like,  but  not  at  North  Street." 

"  Why  not  at  North  Street?  " 

"  Does  it  matter  where  ?  So  long  as  we  can  be  quiet 
and  can  try  to  understand  each  other." 

"  Very  well,'*  he  said.  "  We  shall  have  to  stay  late  to 
catch  up  the  correspondence." 

She  took  up  her  note-book. 

"  Do  you  want  me  now  ?  "  she  asked. 

"  Please.  .  .  .  But  I  don't  understand  you,  Ruth.  I 
don't  understand  you.  .  .  .  I'll  be  ready  for  you  in  half 
an  hour." 

He  stood  gazing  at  her  in  perplexity  for  some  moments, 
winced  at  the  memory  of  what  she  had  said  to  him,  then 
turned  and  walked  slowly  out  with  his  head  lowered  so 
that  his  back  looked  to  her  like  that  of  a  heavy  old 
man. 

Sophina  returned  with  her  arms  full  of  buff  papers. 

"  Oh,  well,  I'm  not  long  for  this  job.  Ruth,  old  dear. 
.  .  .  Carline's  going  to  put  up  a  bit  of  money  for  me,  and 
I'm  going  into  a  show.  I  have  been  lucky.  There's  a 
lot  of  real  Russians  knocking  around,  and  I  haven't  met 
one  of  them.  I  think  they  must  run  away  when  they 
see  him.  ...  I  had  a  bit  of  a  fright  the  other  day  when 
I  was  dancing  at  a  hospital.  The  Russian  Ambassador's 
daughter  was  there,  but  she  was  such  a  fine  lady  she 
wouldn't  speak  to  me.  She  looked  a  bit  like  you,  Ruth, 
the  way  you  look  at  people  when  they  get  a  bit  above 
themselves.  „  .  ." 


RUTH  AND  TRENHAM 273 

"Really?  "said  Ruth. 

"Yes.  The  way  you  looked  just  now  when  I  came 
into  the  room.  I  bet  I  make  a  lot  of  money  when  the 
war  stops." 

"Money?"  said  Ruth. 

"  You  ought  to  marry  a  rich  man  with  your  looks, 
Ruth.  And  there  will  be  rich  men  after  the  war,  mark 
my  words.  ...  I  don't  think  either  you  or  me  was  cut 
out  for  typewriting." 

Trenham's  bell  rang,  and  Ruth  went  in  to  him.  They 
worked  without  a  word  for  a  couple  of  hours,  and  by  that 
time  the  Ministry  was  empty.  A  converted  hotel,  it  was 
extraordinarily  dismal,  and  typical  of  the  upheaval  and 
desolation  of  the  war.  Trenham  remarked  on  this. 

"  I  am  beginning  to  hate  London,"  he  said.  "  I  some- 
times think  the  trenches  must  be  cheerful  in  comparison. 
I  meet  young  officers  who  long  to  go  back.  They  see  the 
changes  which  have  come  over  us  so  gradually  that  we 
have  not  noticed  them." 

It  eased  him  to  talk.  He  was  dreading  his  interview 
with  Ruth.  At  the  back  of  his  mind  he  had  been  repeat- 
ing over  and  over  to  himself  what  she  had  said,  and 
living  again  through  the  sickening  sensation  that  had 
come  over  him  as  she  had  suddenly  snapped  her  resistance 
to  him.  It  had  been  so  staggeringly  sudden.  Never, 
never  had  he  had  the  smallest  doubt  that  he  possessed 
her.  He  had  loved,  told  his  love,  and  won  her  so  that 
everything  else  had  become  definitely  what  it  had  always 
been — extraneous,  and  he  had  vaguely  planned  how  to 
preserve  this  beauty  in  his  life  when  the  time  came  for 
him  to  return  to  the  North— Ruth  in  North  Street,  which 
he  would  visit  constantly,  and  long  holidays  abroad  every 
year. 


274  PINK  ROSES 


They  wandered  through  the  crowded  streets,  full  of 
sauntering  soldiers  and  loud-voiced  women,  with  news- 
vendors  shouting  and  muttering  the  news  from  Russia, 
which  for  the  moment  seemed  to  be  the  centre  of  events. 
He  took  her  arm  and  they  walked  as  they  had  so  often 
done,  absorbed  in  each  other,  hardly  heeding  what  was 
going  on  around  them,  scarcely  knowing  which  way  they 
turned. 

As  they  reached  Piccadilly  Circus  there  was  an  air-raid 
warning.  Involuntarily  they  ran  and  entered  a  lighted 
doorway  out  of  which  poured  presently  a  stream  of  for- 
eigners, Belgians,  French,  Jews,  soldiers,  prostitutes, 
serving-women,  waiters  .  .  . 

"  Doesn't  look  as  if  this  was  safe,"  said  Trenham. 

"  I  don't  mind,"  said  Ruth,  "  so  long  as  I  am  not  in 
the  street.  It  is  the  frightened  people  I  mind  more  than 
the  noise  or  the  danger.  What  is  this  place  ?  " 

"  It's  the  Cafe  Claribel.  ...  If  you  are  not  frightened 
we  had  better  have  dinner." 

A  fair  number  of  people  had  stayed  in  the  cafe  saloon. 
The  Dore  gargoyle  maitre  d'hotel  was  unperturbed.  It 
would  take  more  than  a  German  bomb  to  remove  him 
unless  it  removed  the  whole  of  the  Claribel,  and  then  he 
would  gladly  die.  .  .  .  He  slipped  forward  on  seeing  the 
unusually  distinguished  new  client,  and  with  arm  out- 
stretched he  guided  Ruth  and  Trenham  to  a  table. 

Trenham  nodded  his  thanks,  gave  up  his  hat  and  coat, 
and  sat  glowering  round.  It  was  not  the  place  he  would 
have  chosen  for  a  fateful  and  intimate  conversation.  He 
ordered  dinner,  frugal  and  plain  as  Ruth  liked  it, 
and  to  postpone  whatever  she  might  wish  to  say,  re- 
marked : 

"  By  the  way,  do  you  remember  the  car  stopping  on 


RUTH  AND  TRENHAM  275 

the  Brighton  road  ?  Extraordinary  thing,  I  met  the  young 
man  who  gave  us  the  petrol.  It  was  the  other  night  at 
Carline's.  His  name  is  Trevor  Mathew,  a  remarkable 
youngster.  I  thought  he  was  an  actor  at  first,  but  it  seems 
he  is  a  lawyer.  Very  good  firm  up  North.  His  father 
stood  for  my  constituency.  Good  family,  I  believe.  It 
was  the  car  and  the  nigger  chauffeur  and  the  lady  in  the 
car  that  misled  me." 

Ruth  turned  pale  and  her  lip  quivered.  So  Trevor  had 
seen  her  then — the  first  time.  And  what  was  all  this 
about  a  car  and  a  negro  chauffeur  and  a  lady  in  the  car  ? 
It  sounded  just  fantastic:  so  unlike  the  Trevor  she  had 
met  that  morning. 

Trenham  went  on : 

"  I  asked  Carline  about  him.  It  seems  he  was  a  great 
friend  of  young  Harry  Hardman,  and  was  of  course 
overshadowed  by  him,  but  they  and  another  youngster 
were  the  social  success  of  London  before  the  war,  a  new 
kind  of  young  man.  .  .  .  Carline  spoke  of  them  with 
tears  in  his  eyes.  You  know,  the  tone  he  uses  when  he 
talks  of  the  Russian  Ballet  or  any  of  the  wonders  these 
London  people  brag  about  before  the  war.  By  the  way, 
how  provincial  they  are!  How  completely  ignorant  of 
anything  outside  their  own  ten  thousand  people !  I  don't 
wonder  the  Ministries  had  to  be  made  for  them  to  keep 
them  embalmed  for  the  duration.  .  .  .  You  don't  seem 
to  be  listening! " 

"  Oh  yes,  yes,"  said  Ruth.  "  I  was  listening.  Do  go 
on." 

"Well,  it  was  at  Carline's  party  or  at  Cherryman's. 
They  were  all  so  happy,  like  little  birds.  I  felt  it  was  such 
a  pity  they  should  be  shut  up  by  the  war.  Why  shouldn't 
they  twitter?  ...  I  didn't  feel  at  home  in  it,  and  I  stood 


276  PINK  ROSES 


in  a  corner  looking  on.  So  did  young  Mathevv.  I  like 
him  immensely,  the  clean  look  of  him,  but  I  don't  think 
he  liked  me.  He  walked  home  with  me,  or  nearly  home. 
I  wanted  him  to  come  and  talk,  but  he  wouldn't.  He 
...  By  the  way,  he  works  in  your  uncle's  office." 

His  eyes  darted  a  piercing  glance  at  her.  She  felt,  but 
did  not  see  it,  and  said  absently : 

"  Yes." 

Some  distance  away  in  the  corner  of  the  cafe  saloon  she 
had  caught  sight  of  Trevor  sitting  with  his  back  to  her, 
and  opposite  him  was  a  woman  with  a  hard,  handsome 
face,  who  watched  him  with  jealous  eyes.  She  averted 
her  gaze,  dreading  that  Trenham  should  follow  its  direc- 
tion, turn,  and  see  him.  Trenham  went  on : 

"  He  told  me  an  extraordinary  story,  something  about 
a  Jew  and  a  million,  and  how  easy  it  would  be  to  change 
the  face  of  things.  I  think  he's  a  bit  of  a  dreamer,  and 
probably  very  unhappy  with  things  as  they  are.  .  .  . 
That  sort  of  thing  is  all  very  well,  but  one  of  the  keenest 
pleasures  left  in  the  world  is  blowing  arguments  to  hell 
with  a  joke.  Take  that  pleasure  away,  and  there  is  very 
little  left  to  spice  the  rest.  People  will  argue,  and  in 
the  last  resort  what  are  you  to  do  ?  " 

"  Don't,"  said  Ruth.  "  I  can't  bear  your  being 
cynical." 

"  That  isn't  cynicism,  my  dear.  It  is  reason.  ...  I 
heard  a  man  at  the  Club  the  other  night  airing  a  theory 
that  the  war  came  about  because  the  men  couldn't  stand 
the  women  any  more  and  preferred  to  go  out  and  kill  each 
other.  .  .  .  One  theory  is  as  good  as  another,  and  that 
seemed  to  me  very  sweeping  and  complete.  One  couldn't 
disprove  it." 

Ruth  kept  saying  to  herself : 


RUTH  AND  TRENHAM  277 

"  He  will  never  understand.  He  will  never  under- 
stand!" 

He  was  a  very  wonderful  man,  strong,  powerful,  intel- 
lectual, decisive,  but  because  nothing  had  a  spiritual  mean- 
ing for  him  he  was  clumsy,  though  he  was  sensitive 
enough  to  feel  dissatisfied  with  everything  except  Love. 
That  ideal  remained.  He  drowned  his  dissatisfaction  in 
it,  and  she  knew  that  she  had  to  destroy  it  for  him.  But 
now  it  had  become  impossible  for  her  to  speak.  The 
sight  of  Trevor  with  that  woman  devouring  him  with  her 
eyes  made  her  dumb.  She  could  not  reconcile  Trevor  as 
he  had  been  that  morning  with  Trevor  as  she  saw  him 
now,  sitting  there  perfectly  at  his  ease,  apparently  quite 
happy.  Trevor — with  such  a  woman!  One  who  was 
soaked  in  her  own  desires.  ...  It  was  even  worse  for 
her  when  she  saw  a  little  Jew  with  black,  oiled  hair  and 
quick,  darting  black  eyes  go  up  to  him  and  shake  hands 
with  him  familiarly,  and  give  an  offhand  intimate  nod 
to  the  woman.  So  intent  and  so  horrified  was  her  gaze 
that  Trenham  could  not  help  giving  a  hurried  glance 
round.  He  did  not  recognize  Trevor,  however,  and  with 
a  kindly  smile  he  said : 

"  You  shouldn't  mind  such  people,  Ruth.  They  live 
their  lives  and  don't  interfere  with  us." 

He  stopped  short,  for  he  had  recognized  the  woman. 
He  looked  at  Ruth,  bit  his  lip,  and  was  silent.  A  minute 
or  two  later  he  said : 

"  Don't  look  at  them.  .  .  .  What's  the  matter  with 
you  to-day?  You  seem  to  be  feeling  things  too  much. 
...  It  would  have  been  much  better  to  go  home.  I 
wonder  why  women  can  never  forgive  that.  ..." 

"  Because  women  are  responsible,"  said  Ruth,  aston- 
ished at  the  power  and  force  of  her  own  thought.  '  They 


278  PINK  ROSES 


are  responsible  for  everything,  everything.  I  would 
never  blame  a  man  for  anything  he  did.  I  don't  blame 
you,  Seymour.  I  blame  myself.  .  .  .  I'm  worse  than 
that  woman,  because  she  doesn't  pretend  ..." 

The  air-raid  had  begun.  They  could  hear  the  booming 
and  thudding  of  the  guns. 

"  Don't.  Don't,"  said  Trenham  pleadingly.  "  Don't. 
.  .  .  Don't  talk  about  it.  ...  Don't  think  about  it.  One 
can't  think  of  these  things  in  the  old  way.  I  love  you. 
When  peace  comes  there  will  be  nothing  for  us  two  but 
our  love." 

"  Seymour,"  said  Ruth,  "  I  think  it  would  be  best  if 
I  stayed  away  for  a  week  or  two,  and  then  I  shall  know 
what  to  say,  what  I  mean,  what  I  want." 

"  You  mean  that  ?  " 

"Yes.  Yes.  .  .  .  I'm  not  fanciful.  You  know  me 
well  enough  to  realize  that  I'm  not  .  .  ." 

There  was  a  tremendous  crash.  The  windows  shook : 
a  sound  of  breaking  and  falling  glass :  the  floor  trembled  : 
the  whole  building  seemed  to  veer  over  and  right  itself 
like  a  ship  in  a  storm:  piles  of  plates  slithered  down: 
everybody  jumped  up:  two  or  three  women  fainted.  A 
man  at  the  next  table  said,  with  a  slow  smile : 

"That's  done  it!" 

The  guns  boomed  and  thudded. 

"We'd  better  get  out  of  this,"  said  Trenham,  but  Ruth, 
trembling,  resumed  her  seat,  and  said  : 

"  That  must  have  been  very  near." 

"  Piccadilly,  I  should  think.  You  see,  it's  just  that 
affecting  your  nerves  without  your  knowing  it." 

Ruth  began  to  feel  hopeless.  He  would  evade  her  every 
attempt  to  make  herself  clear,  and  if  she  failed  to  do 
that  she  would  remain  entangled  with  him  for  ever  and 


RUTH  AND  TRENHAM 279 

ever  because  he  loved  her,  with  an  old  man's  confiding, 
indulgent,  corrosive  love.  .  .  .  She  looked  up  at  the 
group  in  the  corner.  They  had  not  moved.  There  was 
permanence  in  them  too.  They  looked  as  though  they 
would  sit  there  for  ever.  Could  what  Trevor  had  said 
be  only  a  theory,  about  as  important  as  the  Club  theory 
of  which  Trenham  had  spoken?  No.  No.  No.  It  had 
gone  straight  to  her  soul,  where  it  had  released  her  own 
thought,  her  own  feeling,  and  showed  what  was  in  her 
own  life  to  be  false  and  superficial  and  without  reaction 
to  her  own  feeling.  It  had  done  more  than  that  even. 
It  had  given  her  the  clue  to  the  immense  falsity  that 
governed  the  world,  so  that  every  appearance  corre- 
sponded to  no  reality,  even  the  war.  .  .  .  That  was  tri- 
vial and  superficial  because  it  corresponded  to  nothing 
that  was  spiritually  true  and  had  become  mechanical  and 
habitual. 

In  a  very  few  moments  the  people  in  the  restaurant 
had  recovered  themselves.  The  band  began  to  play  again. 
Fresh  people  came  in.  Waiters  returned  and  were  busy 
fetching  wine  and  liqueurs  to  restore  panic-stricken 
nerves. 

"  All  the  same,"  thought  Ruth,  "  I  can't  let  him  go 
away  thinking  that  nothing  has  happened.  If  I  did  that 
it  would  be  the  end  of  me.  It  would  be  like  a  dropped 
stitch,  and  I  should  spend  the  rest  of  my  life  trying  to 
pick  it  up." 

She  smiled  at  him.  She  was  very  fond  of  him,  her 
big,  clumsy,  helpless  man,  and  it  was  so  much  better  now 
that  her  blinding  pity  for  him  was  gone.  ...  He  was 
elated  by  her  smile,  as  eager  as  a  dog  that  has  not  been 
spoken  to  by  its  master  for  a  long  time. 

"You  know,  Seymour,"  she  said,  "Leslie  is  right. 


280  PINK  ROSES 


The  young  people  are  tremendously  right  in  insisting  on 
having  things  out.  ...  I  want  to  say  ..." 

"  Oh,  very  well !    I'll  listen,"  he  grumbled. 

"  I  want  to  say  that  it  wasn't  quite  fair  of  you  to 
pretend  that  father's  invention  was  good  ..." 

"  I  only  wanted  to  be  kind." 

"  It  put  things  wrong  from  the  start,  and  if  it  hadn't 
been  for  Leslie  they  might  have  gone  on  being  wrong  for 
ever.  ...  I  think  men  are  going  to  be  very  wonderful 
now.  They  will  just  force  women  to  be  truthful  by 
understanding  them.  Leslie  knew,  and  he  couldn't  stand 
my  father  being  so  pleased  with  himself,  and  then  I'm 
sure  he  knew  about  you  and  me." 

"No!" 

"  Yes.  He  wouldn't  have  minded  if  it  had  been  a  true 
thing,  but  you  see  he  and  I  ...  Well,  I  could  deceive 
myself,  but  I  couldn't  deceive  him.  That  is  what  hap- 
pened. Don't  you  see  ?  " 

Trenham  shook  his  head.  His  eyes  sought  hers  in  dog- 
like  pleading  misery. 

"  That  is  what  I  meant,"  she  said,  "  when  I  said  I  was 
worse  than  that  woman.  We  can't  lie  when  boys  like 
Leslie  are  being  killed  out  there  every  day.  If  every- 
body stopped  lying  there  would  be  no  need  for  them  to 
be  killed." 

"  I  love  you,  Ruth,  I  love  you,  Ruth,"  said  Trenham, 
in  a  low  despairing  voice.  "  It  has  been  the  one  true 
thing  of  my  life.  Don't  kill  it.  Oh,  for  God's  sake  don't 
kill  it!" 

"  You  see,"  she  went  on,  "  I  hadn't  lived  at  all  when 
I  came  to  North  Street.  I  had  just  worked.  There 
hadn't  been  time  or  room  ..." 

Trenham  nodded  and  kept  his  head  bowed.    He  under- 


RUTH  AND  TRENHAM  281 

stood  that  he  had  profited  by  her  ignorance,  and  that  for 
some  reason  which  he  could  not  grasp  she  was  ignorant 
no  more. 

"  Yes,"  he  said.    "  Yes." 

"  You  see,"  she  said,  "  it  is  that  kind  of  thing  in 
women  that  has  forced  the  boys  out." 

That  he  could  not  follow.  She  seemed  to  him  to  be 
merely  fantastic,  and  it  hurt  him  intolerably. 

"  That's  enough,  Ruth  .  .  .  Keep  Leslie  out  of  it  now. 
I'll  see  that  he's  all  right.  I'm  not  going  to  let  them 
waste  a  boy  like  that.  They  have  wasted  far  too  many 
already.  I'll  see  that  he's  all  right.  I  have  loved  you, 
Ruth.  I  understand.  You  will  love  me  in  time.  I'll  give 
you  years,  if  you  want  it." 

She  shook  her  head  sadly.  He  took  out  his  pocket- 
book,  and  let  the  faded  pink  rose  fall  on  to  the 
table. 

"  I  stole  that,"  he  said.  "  That's  what  you  mean,  isn't 
it?  I'll  give  it  back  to  you,  if  you  like." 

"  No.  No.  We're  not  children,  though  we  have  been. 
I  don't  want  it  back.  I'm  not  trying  to  destroy  what 
has  been  only  to  make  sure  that  it  shan't  destroy  me 
or  you.  You  especially,  because  there  are  others  in  your 
life." 

He  carried  the  pink  rose  to  his  lips. 

"  It  was  just  a  dream,  then,"  he  said,  "  and  North 
Street  is  just  a  dream  too.  I  used  to  fancy  that  the  kind 
of  life  that  made  those  houses  was  coming  again.  And 
I  wanted  to  be  in  it,  a  lovely,  dainty,  composed  life,  and 
then  you  came  and  there  was  such  a  life.  Ugliness  and 
monotony  and  mechanical  hardness  had  all  slipped  away, 
and  then  we  were  gracious  and  elegant.  When  we  walked 
in  St.  James's  Park  I  used  to  fancy  we  were  Mirabell 


282  PINK  ROSES 


and  Millamant  taking  the  air  after  a  delicious  quarrel, 
or  Tom  Jones  and  Sophia  come  up  in  the  coach  along 
the  Bath  Road.  I  never  felt  that  I  was  a  day  older  than 
you.  I  suppose  I  was  a  fool,  but  I  loved  you  and  I  know 
that  you  will  love  me.  I  knew  it  couldn't  go  on  as  it 
has  been,  but  I  didn't  want  you  to  wake  from  the  dream. 
I  ...  I  ..." 

"  Will  you  leave  it  to  me,  then?  " 

"Yes.  'What  can  I  do?" 

There  was  despair  in  his  voice,  and  he  struggled.  He 
would  not  let  her  see  the  agony  he  was  in. 

Cora  Dinmont  had  caught  sight  of  Ruth,  and  drew 
Trevor's  attention  to  her  as  the  eloping  typist  of  the 
Brighton  road.  Ruth  had  only  just  time  to  hold  the 
menu  in  front  of  her  face  as  he  turned.  Cora  marked  the 
glad  recognition  in  his  eyes,  and  a  fury  came  into  her 
own. 

"  You  were  wrong  about  them,"  said  Trevor.  "  He  is 
Sir  Seymour  Trenham,  the  explosives  expert  brought 
down  from  Newcastle  for  the  war." 

"  And  the  girl?  "  drawled  Cora. 

"  I  believe  she  works  in  his  department.  She  is  the 
niece  of  the  head  of  my  firm.  Mr.  Hobday." 

Cora  simmered  with  spite.  She  could  have  every  sym- 
pathy with  Ruth  as  a  typist,  but  Ruth  as  a  lady  was  an 
object  of  hatred. 

"Well."  she  said,  "she  ain't  half  as  good-looking  as 
she  thinks.  Just  the  sort  to  marry  an  old  man  like  that. 
I  think  it's  disgusting  what  girls  like  that  will  do  for 
money." 

Trevor  laughed  at  her  good-humouredly,  and  was  even 
more  amused  to  see  Mr.  Ysnaga,  after  a  keen,  sly  glance 
at  Ruth  and  Trenham.  decide  that  they  could  not  possibly 


RUTH  AND  TRENHAM  283 

be  milked  and  were  not  and  never  likely  to  be  of  his 
world. 

"  I  must  take  you  home,"  said  Trenham. 

"  For  the  last  time."  she  said,  feeling  much  happier. 

"  For  a  while,"  said  he.  "  For  a  while,  perhaps.  We 
will  always  be  friends  whatever  happens." 

"  Oh,  yes,"  said  Ruth. 

The  guns  had  stopped  when  they  passed  out  into 
Piccadilly  Circus,  and  the  streets  were  absolutely  deserted. 
There  were  neither  'buses  nor  taxis  in  sight,  and  they  had 
to  go  by  train.  In  the  Tube  station  there  were  whole 
families  sitting  staring  vacantly  in  front  of  them,  children 
lying  asleep,  mothers  holding  their  babies  wrapped  up 
in  blankets,  men  smoking,  spitting,  wandering  noisily  up 
and  down. 

Trenham  held  Ruth's  arm  tightly  clutched  in  his.  It 
was  torture  to  him  to  lose  contact  with  her,  and  he  said, 
with  a  grim  smile  and  heartrendingly  jocular  tone : 

"  It  isn't  only  arguments  that  the  fools  blow  to  hell 
with  their  guns." 

Ruth  looked  up  at  him  gratefully: 

"  We  could  always  be  happy  together,  you  and  I.  ... 
But  if  it  had  gone  on  as  we  were  I  should  have  found  the 
world  full  of  ugliness  to-morrow.  ..." 

"  Should  I  have  done  that  for  you?  " 

"  No.    I  should  have  done  it  for  myself." 

He  looked  so  puzzled  in  his  hurt.  He  was  like  a  great 
boy — only  of  the  older  generation,  the  generation  that 
had  never  grown  up,  the  generation  represented  by  the 
Kaiser,  and  Roosevelt,  and  all  the  other  boys  who  had 
grown  grey  and  tubby  without  noticing  it.  He  was  so 
good,  so  decent,  and,  looking  up  at  him,  it  hurt  Ruth  to 
think  of  Trevor  sitting  so  happily  and  so  much  at  his  ease 


284  PINK  ROSES 


with  those  inexplicable  people.  It  was  Trevor  who  had 
made  her  new  happiness  possible,  Trevor  through  whom 
she  had  understood  Leslie,  and  through  Leslie  herself 
and  Trenham.  .  .  .  What  was  the  meaning  of  it  all? 
To  her  it  was  as  disastrous  and  terrible  as  the  pitiful  poor 
people  still  huddled  in  the  Tube,  although  the  signal  of 
safety  had  been  given  long  ago. 

Trenham  would  not  leave  her  without  embracing  her. 
He  held  her  long  in  his  arms  and  whispered  : 
"  You  will  love  me,  Ruth,  you  will  love  me." 
And  all  the  while  she  thought  with  anguish  of  Trevor 
and  that  woman,  that  monstrous  devouring  woman,  and 
it  was  almost  a  comfort  to  her  to  hope  that  what  Tren- 
ham said  would  come  true,  and  that  she  would  love  him, 
until  she  remembered  that  Trevor  had  spoken  of  her  grey 
dress,  that  Sunday  in  Whitehall,  her  grey  dress  and  the 
pink  rose. 


XIX 
PLOTS  AND  PLANS 

TREVOR  had  not  failed  to  mark  the  effect  of  the  word 
"  million  "  on  Mr.  Hobday's  mind,  and  his  own  thoughts 
were  turned  more  seriously  than  they  had  been  to  Mr. 
Angel.  That  apparently  was  the  magic  word  which  kept 
people  satisfied.  Millions  of  men  were  being  killed,  mil- 
lions were  being  spent  every  day,  thousands  of  millions 
were  now  owing,  millions  had  been  subscribed  for 
charitable  purposes,  millions  of  women  were  engaged  in 
war-work,  credits  were  voted  by  the  hundred  million,  mil- 
lions of  new  voters  were  added  to  the  register,  and 
Sunday  newspapers  were  circulated  by  the  million.  As 
long  as  things  were  done  on  that  scale  nobody  worried, 
nobody  attempted  to  think,  nobody  wished  to  criticize. 
Breathe  the  word,  and  even  the  most  cherished  moral 
prejudices  were  suspended  and  the  most  rigid  rules  could 
be  broken  with  impunity.  It  was  to  this  that  Trevor  at- 
tributed the  hypnotic  power  of  the  newspapers.  They 
screamed  and  shrieked  the  word  "  million  "  in  different 
forms  of  type  until  all  their  readers  felt  that  they  were 
millionaires  and  could  do  as  they  damn  well  pleased,  if 
not  always  individually,  then  in  the  mass,  nationally. 
Having  had  the  good  fortune  not  to  be  caught  up  in  this 
Gadarene  unanimity,  Trevor  was  more  and  more  fas- 
cinated by  the  idea  of  what  he  could  do  with  a  million 
used  honestly  for  genuine  ideals  and  things  of  permanent 
worth.  He  had  to  admit  that  one  million  was  very  little 

ass 


286  PINK  ROSES 


compared  with  thousands  of  millions,  but  on  the  other 
hand  one  man  could  make  more  effective  use  of  one 
million  than  millions  of  people  could  of  many  millions. 

He  inquired,  therefore,  into  what  Mr.  Angel  and  Mr. 
Ysnaga  were  doing,  and  found  that  they  were  only  intent 
on  making  more  millions.  Mr.  Ysnaga's  one  bright  idea 
was  to  organize  a  system  of  tally-men  to  go  among  the 
munition  workers  with  expensive  luxuries — pianos,  fur- 
coats,  jewellery,  scented  soaps.  With  a  sound  commer- 
cial instinct  he  proposed  to  treat  the  munition  workers 
as  concessionaires  treat  natives  in  tropical  countries. 
That  was  good  business,  but  Mr.  Angel  wanted  to  be  an 
English  gentleman,  and  there  Mr.  Ysnaga  could  not 
help  him  while  Trevor  could,  and  as  schemes  began  to 
flower  in  his  mind  he  attempted  to  conquer  his  reluctance 
and  was  willing  to  help  Mr.  Angel  in  return  for  a  free 
hand.  He  could  see  no  reason  why  money  vulgarly 
acquired  should  be  vulgarly  used,  and  why  modern  or- 
ganization should  be  devoted  entirely  to  economic  and 
social  purposes.  In  the  old  days  it  had  been  a  favourite 
discussion  with  Hardman  and  Peto  as  to  whether  the 
proper  way  to  straighten  out  social  tangles  was  not  to 
begin  by  organizing  the  intellectual  and  spiritual  life  of 
the  country,  and  Hardman  used  to  declare  that  with  a 
million  and  half  a  dozen  young  men  could  bring  even 
the  Church  and  the  Law  to  their  senses,  smash  the  news- 
papers, and  make  possible  an  aristocracy  of  imaginative 
people,  men  and  women  of  quality,  who  would  be  con- 
stantly recruited  from  the  generations  as  it  became  pos- 
sible for  them  to  live  for  something  more  than  the  day's 
eating  and  sleeping.  .  .  .  That  idealist  side  of  Hard- 
man had  been  the  real  man,  and  Trevor  felt  that  he  owed 
it  to  him  to  attempt  to  fulfil  his  dream  and  put  the  poet, 


PLOTS  AND  PLANS  287 

who  had  only  been  an  after-thought,  in  his  place.  The 
poet  had  been  collared  by  the  newspapers,  who  had  made 
of  Hardman,  the  rather  sardonic  critic  of  modern  so- 
ciety, a  patriotic  prig.  That  was  depressing.  If  the 
newspapers  could  do  that,  what  was  there  that  they  could 
not  do? 

The  difficulty  was  where  to  begin.  And  if  he  began, 
where  would  it  end?  He  was  not  a  revolutionary.  He 
wished  to  destroy  nothing.  Rather  he  wished  to  restore 
vitality  to  decayed  traditions,  to  reveal  the  overlaid  Eng- 
land that  had  produced  Shakespeare  and  Milton,  Fielding 
and  Swift.  If  money  could  do  it  he  would  go  for  the 
money,  but  he  was  not  altogether  sure  that  money  could 
do  it.  A  theatre,  a  bookshop,  a  publishing  house.  It 
was  a  question  of  ramming  taste  down  people's  throats 
until  they  acquired  it;  only  of  course  the  difficulty  would 
be  that  people  as  they  acquired  taste  would  be  nauseated 
by  the  old  habits  and  they  would  ascribe  their  nausea 
to  the  new  thing. 

He  thoroughly  enjoyed  these  speculations  and  arrived 
at  one  very  definite  and  important  conclusion,  that  for 
England  the  problem  was  not  political,  but,  as  the  de- 
cadents of  the  nineties  had  seen  in  their  funny,  exag- 
gerated way,  a  question  of  aesthetics.  The  English  really 
had  nothing  to  worry  about  except  their  deplorable  taste. 
It  gave  him  a  peculiar  mischievous  pleasure  to  air  these 
views  to  Cora  who,  perceiving  that  they  pointed  straight 
to  Mr.  Angel,  was  delighted.  She  thought  Trevor  would 
make  a  splendid  theatre-manager  because  he  looked  so 
fine  in  his  evening  clothes.  As  usual,  he  was  jocular  and 
a  little  ironical,  and  she  could  not  perceive  how  serious 
he  was  beneath  his  almost  flippant  triviality,  and  when  he 
talked  to  her  about  reviving  Ben  Jonson  and  Beaumont 


288  PINK  ROSES 


and  Fletcher  and  Congreve  she  plucked  up  courage  and 
told  him  that  Mr.  Ysnaga  wanted  her  to  go  on  the  stage. 
She  thought  he  meant  to  stay  in  London  and  throw  in 
his  lot  with  Mr.  Angel,  who  had  lately  bought  a  theatre 
and  also  in  the  country  a  great  mansion  with  a  park 
walled  round  for  seven  miles  in  each  direction,  two 
villages,  and  half  a  dozen  country  houses.  In  one  of 
these  Cora  designed  to  live  with  Trevor,  for  she  imagined 
that,  once  he  had  decided  against  going  North,  he  would 
marry  her,  if  only  because  she  was  so  useful  in  managing 
Mr.  Ysnaga  and  Mr.  Angel. 

"  The  stage  ?  "  he  said.  "  Good  idea.  It  will  give  you 
something  to  do." 

"  I  only  want  to  do  it  if  it  is  going  to  help  you,  if  you 
want  to  do  all  these  things  you  are  always  talking  about. 
It's  all  women  on  the  stage.  And  Angel  is  really  keen 
on  you.  His  feelings  are  quite  hurt  because  you  don't 
ask  him  for  anything." 

"  There's  nothing  that  I  want  for  myself." 

"  Oh !  You  are  funny.  You  have  been  a  bit  funny 
ever  since  you  were  ill.  Well,  shall  I  go  on  the  stage? 
The  new  show  is  in  rehearsal.  I'd  get  ten  pounds  a  week, 
but  they'd  expect  me  to  show  myself  a  bit  in  Town. 
Would  you  mind  ?  " 

She  wanted  him  to  say  that  he  did,  but  he  was  so  in- 
tent upon  his  own  problems  that  he  replied  absently : 

"  Not  a  bit.    I  think  it's  time  you  lived  your  own  life." 

She  was  enraged,  for  she  took  his  perfectly  innocent 
words  as  an  insulting  reference  to  her  former  existence. 

"  All  right,  Mr.  Innocence,  if  that's  all  you 
care  ..." 

Sydney,  who  always  hated  Cora  when  she  lost  her 
temper,  leaped  to  his  feet  on  Trevor's  stomach,  where  he 


PLOTS  AND  PLANS 289 

had  been  lying,  and  barked  at  her.  He  had  grown  into  a 
passable  dog. 

"  Put  that  dog  down !  "  she  cried.  "  You're  always 
nursing  the  beast  as  if  it  was  a  baby.  So  I'm  to  live  my 
own  life,  am  I?  ...  That's  what  I  get  for  looking 
after  you  when  you  were  sick,  and  chucking  all  my 
friends  and  everything  for  you,  is  it  ?  Well,  it's  a  damn 
sight  better  life  than  any  you'll  ever  know." 

"  Don't  be  absurd,  Cora,"  said  Trevor,  throwing  Syd- 
ney down.  "  All  that  points  to  what  I  say.  You  want 
to  do  something  because  the  monotony  of  this  life  is 
fretting  your  nerves  away." 

"  I  don't  mind  the  monotony,  so  long  as  it's  with 
you." 

Trevor  was  almost  livid  with  irritation.  Was  there 
nothing  that  a  woman  would  not  endure  for  the  posses- 
sion of  a  man? 

"  What  do  you  do  when  I  am  out?  "  he  asked. 

"  I  wait  for  you  to  come  back,"  she  replied,  with  an 
overwhelming  sense  of  conscious  virtue. 

"  That's  my  point,"  he  said.  "  I  mean  I  want  you  to 
want  to  do  something  for  its  own  sake  and  simply  be- 
cause you  like  it ;  not  because  you  think  I  like  it." 

That  was  too  complicated  for  Cora.  The  answer  to 
all  his  objections,  the  salve  of  all  her  own  dissatisfaction, 
was  that  she  was  in  love  with  him,  and  Love,  she 
thought,  had  made  her  a  good  woman. 

"  If  you're  dull,"  she  said,  "  why  don't  you  have  your 
friends  to  see  you  ?  " 

"  I  have  no  friends." 

"  There's  that  Cherryman  and  Carline,  and  that  Tren- 
ham  man.  You  talked  about  him  a  lot.  The  flat's  big 
enough.  Why  don't  you  have  'em  here?  Mr.  Angel's 


290  PINK  ROSES 


dying  to  meet  some  swells.  Why  don't  you  ask  him  to 
meet  them  ?  He's  rich  enough  to  meet  anybody.  Or  do 
you  think  they'd  turn  up  their  noses  because  we're  not 
married?  You  didn't  mind  down  at  the  sea  that  time. 
If  you'd  only  make  up  your  mind  what  you  want  to  do  we 
could  get  married  if  that's  in  the  way,  and  go  ahead." 

Trevor  felt  dizzy,  as  though  he  was  standing  on  the 
brink  of  an  abyss.  She  had  often  hovered  tremulously 
round  the  subject,  but  had  never  been  outspoken  before, 
and  the  thought  of  marriage  had  never  crossed  his 
mind. 

"  I  thought,"  he  said,  "  that  we  weren't  going  to  make 
any  plans  until  the  end  of  the  year." 

"  It  isn't  me,"  she  cried.  "  It's  you  that's  complain- 
ing. I  simply  mentioned  that  Mr.  Ysnaga  wanted  me 
to  go  into  the  new  show,  and  you  begin  to  throw  my 
old  life  in  my  teeth." 

"  I  did  nothing  of  the  kind." 

"  Yes,  you  did,"  she  said,  almost  weeping.  "  And  you 
said  your  friends  wouldn't  come  here  because  of  me." 

"  Absolute  invention !  "  muttered  Trevor. 

"  It  isn't  invention.  It's  the  truth.  I'm  not  a  liar, 
if  I  have  been  good  to  men.  You  said  you  were  going 
on  the  stage,  and  I  wanted  to  go  too." 

Trevor's  brain  reeled.  So  all  his  idealistic  projects 
only  meant  to  her  that  he  thought  of  going  on  the  stage. 
If  that  was  what  they  were  to  her,  what  on  earth  would 
Mr.  Angel  and  Mr.  Ysnaga  make  of  them? 

"  All  right,"  he  said.  "  I  don't  care  a  damn.  If  you 
want  to  meet  people,  you  shall.  There  aren't  any  barriers 
nowadays.  Nobody  can  object  to  anybody.  You  shall 
have  my  friends.  You  shall  have  everybody  I  know.  I 
live  with  you.  I'm  not  ashamed  of  you,  only  you  must 


PLOTS  AND  PLANS    291 

stop  this  jealous  crouching  over  me.  Why,  you  are 
jealous  even  of  the  dog.  The  longer  we  go  on  the 
worse  you  ..." 

He  stopped  suddenly,  as  like  a  piece  of  ice  dropped 
into  his  brain,  the  idea  stabbed  home  to  him  that  she  was 
thinking  all  the  time  of  the  approaching  hour  when  he 
must  leave  her,  and  that  she  intended  to  marry  him :  and 
behind  her  slyly  moved  the  sinister  figure  of  Mr. 
Ysnaga. 

"  Don't  let  us  make  fools  of  ourselves,  Cora,"  he  said. 
"  I  lost  my  temper.  I  beg  your  pardon.  I  shall  be 
only  too  glad  if  you  do  go  on  the  stage.  You  will  be 
helping  ..." 

Again  he  stopped.  What  had  happened  to  falsify  his 
utterance  so  confoundedly?  When  he  thought  a  thing 
it  was  true.  When  he  spoke  it  at  once  it  sounded  false, 
insincere,  and  to  Cora  especially  it  was  becoming  difficult 
to  be  simple  and  truthful.  In  everything,  even  about 
food,  clothes,  drink,  and  money  he  had  to  talk  to  her  in 
words,  of  one  syllable.  He  began  again : 

"You  will  be  ..." 

No.  It  was  no  good.  She  would  not  be  helping  him. 
The  stage  on  which  she  would  be  acceptable  would  be 
the  stage  of  legs  and  lingerie.  .  .  .  What  he  really 
wanted  to  say  was  that  she  would  be  relieving  him, 
saving  him  a  great  deal  of  trouble,  only  that  he  could 
not  allow  himself  even  to  think.  .  .  .  For  a  moment  or 
two  he  thought  as  she  said,  calculatingly,  and  he  fancied 
that  it  would  be  a  good  thing  if  she  kept  the  two 
Hebrews  occupied  with  the  public  activity  which  they 
could  understand,  while  quietly,  and  at  their  expense,  he 
set  about  putting  his  schemes  into  practice.  The  only 
way,  he  was  sure,  was  to  do  it  without  talking  about 


292  PINK  ROSES 


it,  buy  the  people  and  the  bricks  and  mortar  he  wanted, 
and  send  the  bill  in  to  Angel.  Yes,  that  was  how  Cora 
would  be  useful  to  him. 

"  Well,"  she  said,  "  finish  what  you  were  going  to  say. 
I'm  all  right.  I've  got  the  best  back  in  London.  That's 
not  a  thing  to  be  sneezed  at.  You've  got  to  be  busy  or 
these  damned  Jews  will  go  cold.  I  know  them.  They 
don't  sit  in  chairs  hugging  dogs  while  the  grass  grows 
under  their  feet." 

This  was  a  cutting  reference  to  Sydney,  who  had 
jumped  back  on  his  master's  stomach. 

"  All  right,"  said  Trevor.  "  I'm  glad  you  want  to 
help.  You'll  enjoy  being  in  the  theatre,  and  we'll  intro- 
duce Angel  to  some  lords  and  ladies  ..." 

"AndCherryman?" 

"  Of  course  Cherryman.  You  couldn't  start  anything 
in  London  without  Cherryman.  He's  a  kind  of  man- 
milliner,  who  provides  the  ladies  with  fashionable  ideals, 
poets,  painters,  eccentrics." 

He  smiled  as  he  thought  that  Cora  as  a  great  bare  back 
artist  would  be  more  acceptable  than  Cora  as  the  Lady 
of  the  Opposite  Flat.  That  restored  the  good-humoured, 
delighted  amusement  he  had  always  loved  in  London  as 
a  place  that,  side  by  side  with  immense  gravity,  bred 
romantic  oddities,  from  whom  flashed  an  inspired  folly 
that  brought  more  illumination  than  ever  came  from 
religious  ecstasy  or  the  tragic  and  passionate  adherence 
to  the  logic  of  an  idea.  It  came,  he  thought,  from  the 
obstinate  refusal  of  the  English  to  take  tragedy  tragi- 
cally. When  they  could  feel  no  more  they  could  laugh, 
and  they  could  turn  even  horror  into  farce. 

Cora  stood  looking  down  at  him  as  he  scratched  the 
dog  he  had  bought  to  avoid  meeting  her. 


PLOTS  AND  PLANS  293 

"  Well,"  she  said.  "  You  are  a  queer  fish.  So  quiet 
there's  never  any  knowing  what  you  are  up  to." 

"  Very  often  I  don't  know  myself,"  said  Trevor. 
"  I'm  glad  we're  going  to  move,  and  I  think  you  and  the 
Hebrews  can  do  more  for  England  than  all  the  high- 
minded  men  of  principle  put  together.  You  know,  my 
dear,  their  principles  aren't  their  own,  they  are  only 
inherited.  They  live  on  them  as  they  live  on  inherited 
dividends.  They  .  .  .  That's  what  I'm  up  against, 
Cora.  I  don't  want  to  go  North.  I  want  to  live  on  my 
own  feelings,  my  own  thoughts,  my  own  ideals." 

"  There  you  go  talking  again,"  she  protested.  "  And 
I  did  think  you  were  going  to  be  sensible  at  last.  If  I'm 
going  on  the  stage  I  must  have  a  press  agent,  and  I  must 
be  photographed." 

44  So  you  shall,"  he  said.  "  So  you  shall.  Only  for 
God's  sake  let  me  talk  or  I  shall  burst.  I've  been  a 
listener  all  my  life,  and  no  one  has  ever  said  what  I 
wanted  them  to  say.  Well,  now  they're  going  to.  I'm 
going  to  teach  them  their  catechism.  '  I  am  a  member 
of  humanity,  a  child  of  love,  and  an  inheritor  of  the 
kingdom  of  my  soul.' ' 

44  That's  wrong,"  said  Cora,  who  had  been  well  drilled 
in  Christianity  at  her  Sunday  School. 

"  No.  It's  the  same  old  catechism,  only  saying  exactly 
what  it  means  instead  of  muddling  it  with  Hebraistic 
terms." 

"  Well,  you  are  extraordinary,"  she  said.  "  I'd  never 
have  thought  you  were  a  bit  religious.  I  had  a  brother 
went  off  his  head  with  it:  preaching.  But  he  was  an 
awful  man.  They  had  to  lock  him  up  because  he  wanted 
to  go  up  to  London  to  murder  me.  He  said  I  was  burn- 
ing his  soul  in  hell." 


294  PINK  ROSES 


They  were  both  by  now  thoroughly  excited  at  having 
broken  the  tension  in  which  they  had  lived  for  so  long, 
and  Cora  felt  that  the  victory  was  hers.  She  was  shrewd 
enough  to  know  that  the  months  of  quiet  living  had  been 
the  making  of  her  and  that  without  the  accident  of  meet- 
ing him  all  these  dizzy  developments  would  never  have 
been  possible.  He  had  shown  a  way  where  none  had  been 
visible,  and  even  Mr.  Ysnaga  had  perceived  that  with 
Trevor  she  had  trebled  her  value  in  the  market,  and  his 
adventurous  mind  set  no  limit  on  the  money  that  could 
be  got  through  Trevor's  touch  which,  without  disturb- 
ance of  any  kind,  made  old  things  new  and  faded  pleas- 
ures bloom  again.  Cora  herself  did  not  understand  it, 
but  she  knew  that  Mr.  Ysnaga  did,  and  that  Mr.  Angel 
was  humbly  prostrate  before  Trevor,  not  only  because 
he  was  young  and  educated  at  Cambridge  College,  but 
because  he  was  somehow  exceptional,  like  a  good  picture 
or  a  rare  piece  of  china.  Mr.  Angel  had  a  nose  for  such 
things,  and  it  had  become  Mr.  Ysnaga's  function  to 
ferret  them  out  for  him. 

And  somehow  with  the  relaxation  of  the  tension  her 
jealousy  also  was  eased.  She  was  delighted  and  happy 
to  think  that  by  going  on  the  stage  she  was  going  to  help 
Trevor,  and  she  knew  that  by  doing  as  Ysnaga  wished 
she  was  committing  Trevor  to  a  greater  destiny. 

"  That  is  one  thing,"  said  Trevor.  "  The  next  thing 
is  the  party.  Cherryman's  the  man.  It  isn't  me,  you 
know,  Cora.  It's  Hardman  doing  all  these  things.  I 
never  had  a  thought  outside  studying  up  the  Law  and 
going  home  and  settling  down  some  day,  and  being  senior 
partner  and  sitting  on  committees.  It  was  Hardman. 
He  was  always  talking  about  setting  England  mad  with 
the  desire  for  the  unattainable.  He  used  to  say  the  Eng- 


PLOTS  AND  PLANS  295 

lish  had  ideas  and  they  loathe  politics,  but  they  can  go 
mad  for  something  so  deeply  desired  that  it  cannot  pos- 
sibly become  articulate.  I  wish  you'd  known  Hardman. 
I  was  thinking  of  him  when  I  met  you.  You  know,  the 
day  when  I  smelt  pink  roses  and  walked  out  of  life  into 
something  that  was  not  quite  life  but  something  more, 
something  peculiarly  English,  a  long,  brooding,  vivid 
memory." 

Cora  laughed  at  him. 

"  Go  on  talking,  Boy,"  she  said.  "  It  does  you  good. 
I'm  off  now  at  once  to  have  some  photos  taken,  and 
before  we  have  the  party  I'll  have  my  name  in  the  papers 
and  outside  the  theatre.  .  .  .  Angel's  bought  it,  by  the 
way.  The  money  that  man  has,  and  the  money  he 
makes !  So  long,  old  dear." 

She  ran  off  merrily,  and  Trevor,  thinking  moodily  of 
Hardman  and  how  deeply  he  was  committed  to  his  loy- 
alty to  him,  called  Sydney  and  returned  to  his  own  flat. 
He  had  not  been  there  more  than  a  moment  or  two  when 
there  was  a  ring  at  the  bell  and  he  went  to  the  door  to 
find  his  mother  standing  there.  She  stood  still  for  a 
moment  or  two  while  her  soft  eyes  scanned  him  for 
reassurance. 

44  Why,  mother !  "  he  said,  holding  her  at  arm's  length 
and  taking  in  the  dear  rosy  face,  so  strong  and  calm 
beneath  its  gentleness,  the  clear  grey  eyes,  the  silken  grey 
hair  under  the  almost  quakerish  bonnet. 

44  You  are  looking  so  much  better,"  she  said.  "  I  de- 
clare. You  are  no  longer  a  boy.  You  frightened  me  by 
being  a  boy  so  long.  What  a  strange  place  to  choose  to 
live  in !  Isn't  it  very  noisy?  " 

44  No.  It  isn't  noisy.  At  least  I  don't  notice  it.  I 
came  here  because  I  wanted  people." 


296  PINK  ROSES 


"  Yes.    It  must  be  lonely  for  you." 

"  It  was  pretty  bad  after  the  Dardanelles.  I  don't 
suppose  you  feel  it  so  much  up  North.  But  London  was 
in  a  fever.  It  was  a  sort  of  helpless  rage.  It  has  been 
better  since  the  Government  went.  We  can  make  fools 
of  ourselves  in  our  own  way.  I  mean,  we  don't  have  to 
pretend  that  anything  is  serious  except  the  war,  and  we 
don't  have  to  respect  anybody.  That's  our  way  of  doing 
things,  just  a  mass  movement  .  .  .  like  shoving  down 
the  railings  of  Hyde  Park  in  order  to  get  the  vote,  or 
shoving  in  a  scrum  to  get  a  hoof  at  the  ball." 

"  I'm  very  glad,"  said  his  mother,  looking  at  him 
lovingly. 

That  was  all  she  had  come  to  say,  to  make  sure  and 
then  to  say  just  that.  Details,  facts,  were  of  no  interest 
to  her.  She  wanted  to  know  how  it  was  with  her  boy, 
and  when  she  knew  that  it  was  well  she  was  ready  to 
withdraw.  She  had  only  come  for  the  day  and  stayed 
long  enough  to  give  him  all  the  news  from  home,  and  to 
tell  him  how  they  were  looking  forward  to  his  return  to 
them  for  good. 

"  I  have  been  reading  your  friend  Hardman's  poems," 
she  said.  "  Some  of  them  are  beautiful,  but  I  don't  think 
he  always  says  what  he  means  to  say." 

"  That's  true,"  answered  Trevor.  "  The  real  Hard- 
man  isn't  in  them  at  all.  I  don't  think  the  real  Hard- 
man  would  have  appeared  before  he  was  forty.  There 
was  such  a  lot  of  him." 

"  And  it  is  just  those  men  who  will  be  needed." 

"  That's  it,"  said  Trevor  indignantly.  "  Any  stupid 
brute  could  have  done  Second-Lieutenant's  work.  I'd 
much  rather  it  had  been  me  than  Hardman.  You  see, 
mother,  he  was  essentially  a  man  who  would  wait  his 


PLOTS  AND  PLANS  297 

time.  That  is  why  all  this  fuss  about  his  poetry  is  so 
indecent.  He'll  have  to  work  against  that  always  as  long 
as  he  lives." 

"  You  talk  about  him  as  though  he  were  alive,"  said 
she. 

"  So  he  is,"  said  Trevor,  and  he  was  filled  with  a 
quivering  sense  that  here  in  this  love  as  in  all  his  loves 
his  friend  would  always  be  with  him,  and  that  with  each 
gain  of  love  he  would  be  able  to  plunge  deeper  into  that 
rare  intimacy.  His  mother  understood.  No  harm  could 
ever  come  to  this  son  of  hers.  He  was  bound  to  a  ful- 
filment that  would  live  all  through  his  life  and  even  be- 
yond it.  She  was  of  Quaker  stock  and  was  practised  in 
silence,  the  silence  that  strengthens,  purifies,  and  unites 
even  where  words  have  divided. 

"  I'm  very  glad,"  she  said.  "  I  was  hurt  only  that 
you  did  not  tell  us  you  were  ill." 

"  I  had  to  go  through  it  alone,"  he  said.  "  I  had  a 
good  friend  to  look  after  me." 

"  Oh  yes."  She  smiled  at  his  suppressing  the  fact  that 
the  friend  was  a  woman,  and  she  was  relieved  too.  He 
was  untouched.  There  was  no  thought  in  him  of  being 
in  love.  He  had  wasted  nothing.  Whatever  he  had 
been  through — and  if  he  could  not  tell  her,  it  was  not 
for  her  to  ask — was  clear  gain. 

As  she  rose  to  go  there  was  another  ring  at  the  bell, 
and  he  darted  to  the  door,  fearing  lest  it  might  be  Cora, 
in  whom  he  knew  there  was  much  that  would  lacerate 
his  mother.  It  was  Mr.  Angel. 

"Oh!  come  in,  Mr.  Angel.  My  mother  is  here.  I 
want  to  introduce  you  to  her." 

Mr.  Angel  was  overcome.  He  wanted  to  turn 
tail. 


298  PINK  ROSES 


"  I  can  tell  you  my  pusiness  on  de  mat,"  he  said. 

"  No,  no,  come  in,"  said  Trevor,  dragging  Mr.  Angel, 
breathless  and  perspiring,  into  his  sitting-room. 

"  Mother,  this  is  a  friend  of  mine,  Mr.  Angel." 

"  A  friend  is  too  much,"  protested  the  unhappy  Jew, 
hiding  his  short  crooked  legs  behind  the  sofa. 

"  I'm  sure  my  son  does  not  use  the  word  lightly,"  said 
Mrs.  Mathew. 

"  He's  a  vonderful  poy,  ma'am,"  said  Mr.  Angel.  "  I 
should  be  so  proud  of  dat  poy  as  if  I  vos  a  hen  vot  laid 
a  ostrich  egg." 

Mrs.  Mathew  laughed  merrily.  It  was  so  like  Trevor 
to  introduce  a  perfectly  incongruous  acquaintance,  and 
to  expect  him  to  be  welcomed  with  open  arms.  And  she 
used  her  merriment  to  cover  her  retreat. 

Trevor  took  her  to  the  door,  and  she  stood  for  a  mo- 
ment looking  over  at  the  door  of  the  opposite  flat,  hesi- 
tated a  moment,  then  decided  to  say  nothing,  kissed  him 
and  took  his  arm  as  they  walked  downstairs  into  the 
street,  where  he  hailed  a  taxi  for  her. 

When  he  returned  he  found  Mr.  Angel  mopping  his 
brow,  still  perspiring  from  the  anguish  of  the  meeting. 

"  I  didn't  say  anything  horrible,  did  I?  " 

"  No,  no,"  laughed  Trevor.  "  Sit  down.  She  liked 
you.  The  mater  can  make  people  feel  they  aren't  there 
if  she  doesn't  like  them." 

Mr.  Angel  spread  out  his  knees,  planted  his  jewelled 
hands  on  them,  and  heaved  a  sigh  or  two  as  his  stomach 
settled  down. 

"  Veil,"  he  said,  "  I  been  to  de  Var  Office  and  dat 
general  vot  shpeaks  to  me  like  a  lord  say  dat  poy  can  be 
recalled  if  you'll  gif  him  de  regimental  number.  Qvite 
strong  in  his  language  he  vos,  and  he  said  de  damn  re- 


PLOTS  AND  PLANS  299 

cruiting  officers  vos  doing  all  dey  could  to  make  de  Var 
Office  unpopular.  Dey  likes  popularity,  de  generals." 

Trevor  had  asked  Mr.  Angel  to  do  what  Mr.  Hobday 
had  refused,  and  Mr.  Angel  had  trotted  off  as  delightedly 
as  an  office-boy  running  an  errand  for  a  considerate 
employer. 

"  De  general  vos  so  happy  dat  I  had  not  come  for  my 
moneys." 

"  I'm  ever  so  much  obliged,"  said  Trevor.  "  You  are 
very  kind.  It  means  a  great  deal,  I  know." 

"Vos  de  name  Hobday?" 

"  Yes." 

"  Hobday,  Treves  and  Treves?  " 

"  Yes.    That's  the  firm  I'm  with." 

"  Ach !  So !  I'm  der  company  on  de  other  side  in 
de  African  case.  It  ruined  me  in  Africa.  But  dere's 
millions  in  it,  millions." 

Mr.  Angel  looked  uncomfortable. 

"  You  don't  have  much  to  do  with  it  ?  " 

"  No.    Only  as  much  or  as  little  as  I  choose." 

Mr.  Angel  was  obviously  relieved.  It  was  clear  that 
Trevor  did  not  know  much  about  it.  He  changed  the 
subject,  and  said  excitedly: 

"You  remember  I  offer  a  prize  for  de  first  Jewish 
V.C.  in  the  British  Navy.  Veil,  he  has  been  von !  " 

He  beamed. 

"Hurray!"  said  Trevor.  'That  just  gives  me  my 
excuse  for  the  party:  a  real  patriotic  party  in  honour 
of  the  V.C" 

"  De  Jewish  V.C.,"  said  Mr.  Angel  solemnly. 


XX 
TREVOR  AND  LESLIE 

WITH  so  much  contributing  to  his  happiness  Trevor 
became  light-heartedly  fantastic  and  thought  of  nothing 
but  his  party,  to  which  he  invited  everybody  he  met.  He 
was  so  absurdly  happy  that  people  smiled  as  they  saw 
him  pass,  for  it  was  long  since  young  men  had  walked 
the  air  in  London.  He  invited  Mr.  Barnes  and  the 
cashier  at  the  office,  and  sent  invitations  to  Cherryman 
and  Carline,  asking  them  to  bring  whom  they  pleased 
and  as  many  as  possible.  He  hunted  up  old  acquaint- 
ances and  asked  them,  attended  rehearsals  at  the  theatre, 
and  invited  the  principal  comedian  and  the  singing  ladies 
— a  real  olla  podrida  of  London  people.  It  made  him 
heady  with  anticipation  because  it  reminded  him  of 
Hardman's  evenings  at  Cambridge,  which  had  been  a 
university  in  themselves,  from  which  not  even  the  shyest 
student  could  stay  away — (Hardman  and  Peto  used  to 
drag  recalcitrants  in  by  force) — Mr.  Angel  would  come, 
of  course,  with  the  V.C.,  and  Trevor  made  him  ask  his 
general  at  the  War  Office.  .  .  .  Only  one  serious 
thought  impeded  his  gaiety,  and  that  was  of  young  Leslie 
Hobday,  who  must  be  rescued  in  time  for  the  party. 
For  some  obscure  reason  Trevor  felt  that  he  could  not 
ask  Ruth.  It  would  have  been  as  inappropriate  as  to  ask 
his  mother. 

He  obtained  her  address  from  the  cashier  at  the  office 

300 


TREVOR  AND  LESLIE  301 

and  wrote  to  her  to  ask  for  Leslie's  regimental  number. 
She  did  not  reply,  and  after  waiting  a  day  or  two,  de- 
ciding that  his  letter  might  have  gone  astray,  he  called 
on  her  at  the  Ministry,  but  was  informed  that  she  was 
away  and  was  not  expected  back  for  a  fortnight.  As  he 
was  turning  disconsolately  away,  having  lost  almost  all 
his  eager  pleasure  because  Leslie  was  still  languishing  in 
the  Army,  Sophina  came  tripping  down  the  stairs  dressed 
d  la  Russe.  She  nodded  and  smiled  several  times  before 
he  recognized  her.  What?  Mademoiselle  Dolgorova? 
Sophina  Solomonovna? 

"  How  do  you  do?  "  he  said.  "  I  didn't  expect  ..." 

"  Oh,  I  work  here,"  she  replied,  "  until  I  can  get  a 
dancing  engagement." 

"  I  wanted  to  see  Miss  Hobday." 

"  Oh !  She's  ill,  poor  darling.  She's  been  away 
nearly  a  week.  She  never  got  over  her  brother  going. 
It  was  such  a  queer  thing.  He  seemed  such  a  sensible 
boy.  You'd  have  thought  he'd  have  waited." 

"  But  he  didn't." 

"  No." 

She  was  just  going  to  pass  on,  when  he  said: 

"  Oh !  by  the  way,  Mile.  Dolgorova,  I'm  giving  a  party 
on  the  ninth.  I've  asked  Carline  and  Cherryman,  and 
there  are  to  be  some  theatrical  people  ..." 

Sophina's  eyes  glittered. 

"I  should  be  so  glad  if  you'd  come  and  dance. 
We're  funny  people,  we  English,  and  the  party  is  in 
honour  of  the  first  Jewish  V.C." 

Sophina's  lip  curled  at  the  distasteful  word. 

"  I  haven't  seen  him,  but  some  friends  of  mine  are 
immensely  proud  of  him." 

He  was  thinking: 


302  PINK  ROSES 


"  Of  course  I  oughtn't  to  have  mentioned  the  word 
Jew.  It  sounds  so  awkward.  It  never  fits  into  any 
sentence,  suggests  the  unmentionable,  God  knows  why. 
Lassalle  was  a  Jew,  and  so  was  Karl  Marx  ..." 

Really  he  must  shake  off  the  confounded  habit  of  let- 
ting his  thoughts  run  away  with  him. 

He  said: 

"  I  hope  Miss  Hobday  will  soon  be  better.  I  only 
met  her  once.  Please  remember  me  if  you  are  writing." 

Sophina  had  guessed  that  he  was  implicated  in  Ruth's 
distress,  though  she  was  not  certain  whether  he  was 
aware  of  it.  Men  are  so  dense. 

She  said: 

"Of  course,"  and  asked  him  for  his  address,  the 
necessity  for  which  had  escaped  him.  He  found  his 
card  and  gave  it  her,  and  she  slipped  away  smiling,  be- 
cause he  had  made  her  happy.  Sophina  said : 

"  He  is  in  love  with  her.  He  is  rich.  He  is  young." 
And  she  congratulated  herself  on  her  wisdom  in  attach- 
ing herself  to  Ruth,  and  then  as  she  thought  of  Tren- 
ham  she  put  out  her  tongue. 

She  had  walked  only  a  few  yards  when  Trevor  came 
running  after  her. 

"  I  say,"  he  said;  "  if  you  want  to  go  on  the  stage  I 
can  help  you.  I  know  some  people — these  friends  of 
mine  are  putting  on  a  show — and — I'll  tell  them  if  you 
like." 

"Oh,  thanks!"  she  said.  "If  it's  the  Ysnaga  show, 
I've  tried " 

"  That's  it.    But  I  can  make  them  give  you  a  chance." 

"Can  you?" 

"If  you'll  be  at  the  theatre  to-morrow  I'll  take  you 
to  Mr.  Ysnaga  himself." 


TREVOR  AND  LESLIE  303 

"  I  know,"  said  Sophina  a  little  bitterly.  "  They  only 
take  people  on  the  nod." 

"  Very  well.  I'll  nod  and  they  shall  take  you.  You've 
worked  hard  for  it." 

"Worked!  I  should  think  I  have."  She  thought  of 
Carline  and  the  months  of  affected  Russianism. 

"  Worked!    Well,  I  think  I  deserve  a  bit  o'  luck." 

There  was  not  much  Russian  about  Sophina  now. 
Her  lips  and  her  eyes  glistened  with  her  devouring  ambi- 
tions, that  were  like  flames  to  burn  through  the  wax  of 
the  lewd  town  of  the  Gentile  Londoners.  Her  little  body 
was  taut  with  elation  as  she  danced  along,  feeling  cer- 
tain in  herself  that  her  real  chance  had  come  at  last, 
her  chance  to  show  Finberg  and  her  father  and  Carline, 
for  the  matter  of  that,  what  she  was  made  of.  She  saw 
herself  intriguing  and  forcing  her  way  to  power  and 
control  in  the  theatre  world,  and  every  nerve  in  her 
tingled  for  the  fight.  Ah!  Wouldn't  she  send  some  of 
the  men  reeling  and  wouldn't  she  just  flay  some  of  the 
women,  the  carcases,  with  neither  energy  nor  talent  to 
justify  their  being  where  they  were  with  so  much  ma- 
chinery set  in  motion  to  exhibit  them  to  the  public.  The 
public!  That  was  what  she  wanted  to  have  her  share 
in,  amusing,  exciting,  and  insulting  the  public,  just  to 
show  them  what  a  Jewess  could  do,  a  Jewess  born  in 
the  gutter  and  bred  from  a  stock  cramped  and  starved 
in  the  Ghetto  in  Russia  .  .  .  Russia?  But  this  was 
fat,  rich  England,  fat  and  rich  even  in  the  middle  of 
the  great  war  which  had  brought  Russia  to  ruin.  The 
Jews  knew,  they  had  always  known,  that  the  war  meant 
ruin  to  Russia,  and  they  were  fiercely,  savagely  glad. 
.  .  .  The  energy  released  in  her  was  astonishing,  but 
she  repressed  it.  As  Trevor  left  her  she  said : 


3o4  PINK  ROSES 


"  Oh,  you  are  good !  " 

"  Not  at  all.     Not  at  all." 

Sophina  watched  him  as  he  walked  away,  and,  think- 
ing of  Ruth,  she  said: 

"  She'll  get  him.     I'll  see  that  she  gets  him." 

It  was  too  late  to  dream  of  going  to  the  office  before 
lunch.  Trevor  decided  that  he  must  dispose  of  the 
Leslie  Hobday  affair,  and  went  to  the  house  near  Baker 
Street.  Its  poor  gentility  disappointed  him,  for  it  was 
not  the  kind  of  place  he  had  imagined  as  Ruth's  house. 
The  door  was  opened  by  Leslie  himself,  looking  as  white 
as  a  ghost:  hollow-cheeked  and  wretched.  At  first 
Trevor  did  not  recognize  him,  and  said : 

"Is  this  Mr.  Hobday's?" 

"Yes.     It  is.     He's  out" 

"Can  I  see  Miss  Ruth  Hobday?" 

"  She's  away." 

"  Will  you  ask  her  then  to  send  her  brother's  regi- 
mental number  to  me,  at  her  uncle's  office." 

"  Did  my  uncle  send  you  ?  "  asked  Leslie,  in  a  fero- 
cious tone. 

"  No." 

"  Then  go  to  hell.  I  haven't  got  a  regimental  num- 
ber. I  crocked,  and  they  kicked  me  out."  He  tried  to 
slam  the  door,  but  Trevor  put  his  foot  in  it  and  cried : 

"  Wait  a  moment.     Wait  a  moment." 

"What  for?" 

Trevor  did  not  quite  know  why  he  wanted  the  door 
left  open.  He  repeated: 

"  Wait  a  moment." 

"Who  are  you,  anyway?"  asked  Leslie. 

"  My  name's  Trevor  Mathew.  I  remember  seeing  you 
once  at  the  corner  of  Whitehall.  But  you  ..." 


TREVOR  AND  LESLIE  305 

"  Come  in,"  said  Leslie,  suddenly  changing  his  man- 
ner. He  liked  this  young  man  with  his  quiet  per- 
sistence. 

Trevor  obeyed  him  and  followed  him  into  the  shabby 
dining-room,  in  which  the  Hobday  furniture  and  the 
Paget-Sutton  portraits  were  at  war. 

"  Sit  down,"  said  Leslie. 

Trevor  sat  down. 

"  How  long  have  you  been  in  my  uncle's  firm  ?  " 

"  Nearly  three  years  now." 

"  Going  to  stay  there?  " 

"  No.    I  have  a  firm  of  my  own  up  North." 

"  I  see.  Look  here,  if  I  played  my  cards  probably  I 
could  go  into  my  uncle's  firm.  Is  it  worth  it,  or  is  it 
hell?" 

"  Oh,  no.  It's  a  bit  dusty  and  old-fashioned.  The 
old  man  is  like  a  paper-weight  sitting  on  the  dusty  pile 
of  documents.  As  soon  as  he  goes  the  draught  will  clean 
them  up  a  bit.  There'll  be  a  big  draught  when  he  goes." 

"  I've  made  a  fool  of  myself,"  said  Leslie.  "  I 
wanted  to  strike  out  for  myself.  You  think  it  would  be 
all  right  if  I  went  in  there?" 

"  Well,  your  name's  Hobday,  just  as  mine's  Mathew. 
Even  if  you  don't  like  all  that  it  stands  for,  there's 
a  good  deal  in  it.  I'm  in  the  same  boat." 

"  Are  you  ?  "  asked  Leslie  eagerly. 

"  Yes.  There's  an  old  firm  waiting  for  me  too.  I'd 
like  to  start  afresh,  but  it  isn't  as  easy  as  all  that.  I 
mean,  one  can't  behave  as  though  one  hadn't  a  name  or 
a  memory.  You  can  hate  your  uncle  as  much  as  you 
please,  but  he  stands  for  a  good  deal  more  than  himself." 

"  I  say,  you  are  decent,"  said  Leslie.  "  Girls  aren't 
any  good,  are  they?  " 


306  PINK  ROSES 


"  Not  much,"  replied  Trevor.     "  They  don't  know." 

"  No,  they  don't,"  said  Leslie  emphatically.  "  And 
what  makes  it  worse,  they  think  they  do.  My  sister  has 
fussed  herself  over  it  until  she  is  ill,  and  there  wouldn't 
have  been  anything  to  fuss  about  if  I'd  had  a  talk  with 
you.  Ruth's  all  right,  but  she's  only  a  girl  after  all, 
and  looking  after  a  family  is  a  man's  work.  You  don't 
know  my  father,  do  you  ?  " 

"  No." 

"  Well.  He  kicked  against  the  Hobdays,  and  they 
cracked  him  like  a  nut.  Where  did  you  go  to  school  ?  " 

"  Eton." 

"  Oh !  I've  just  gone  to  Westminster,  but  it's  rotten. 
Nothing  to  look  forward  to  but  the  old  war,  and  every- 
body mad  keen  about  the  Army.  It's  rough  luck  on  us, 
isn't  it?" 

"The  war?" 

Leslie  nodded  and  looked  away.  It  was  Trevor's  first 
real  contact  with  anybody  much  younger  than  himself. 
It  was  dramatically  and  splendidly  the  one  thing  needful 
for  him.  Leslie  slipped  into  the  terrible  void  left  by 
Hardman,  and  more  than  filled  it.  He  had  a  passionate 
quality  which  Hardman  had  lacked.  Nothing  would 
ever  be  easy  for  Leslie,  whereas  for  Hardman,  as  for 
Trevor,  everything  had  been  easy,  fatally  easy,  The 
way  had  been  made  smooth  for  them,  even  for  their 
triumphant  response  to  the  need  of  the  moment  in  the 
first  months  of  the  war.  .  .  .  But  for  Leslie  there 
would  be  a  grinding  struggle  for  everything,  to  recover 
the  ground  that  had  been  lost,  to  regain  traditions  that 
had  been  obscured,  to  redeem  his  inheritance  from  the 
bragging  defiance  to  which  the  elders,  losing  touch  with 
the  young,  had  descended  in  their  pathetic  efforts  to 


TREVOR  AND  LESLIE  307 

speak  for  those  who  should  come  after  them.  Trevor 
understood  that  what  he  had  been  through  was  a  trifle 
compared  to  the  ordeal  which  had  been  imposed  on 
Leslie,  and  that  unless  they  joined  hands  the  struggle 
would  grow  harder  as  time  went  on,  and  boys  fighting 
their  way  into  manhood  would  be  crippled  and  done  to 
death,  though  life  should  preserve  a  peaceful  and  serene 
surface.  .  .  . 

Odd  how  the  war  had  made  people  think  of  them- 
selves in  relation  to,  things  greater  than  themselves,  as 
symbolic,  as  being  linked  with  others  for  purposes 
greater  than  their  desires!  Trevor  was  fully  conscious 
of  this.  He  had  come  clean  through  his  struggle  while 
the  boy,  so  vivid,  so  eager,  so  nervously  wrought  up, 
was  in  the  middle  of  his,  and  only  for  a  moment  com- 
forted and  consoled  by  the  presence  of  this  friend  who 
could  understand. 

"  I  had  to  go  into  the  Army,"  he  explained,  "  to  get 
rid  of  it.  I  can  talk  to  you.  You  don't  mind?  You 
know,  all  the  fellows  who  have  gone,  who  don't  know. 
We  do  know.  They  think  we're  awfulry  young,  but  we 
do  know — all  the  things  that  people  like  my  father  have 
pretended  not  to  know.  We've  got  to  know,  because 
something's  hurting  us  all  the  time  and  we've  got  to  find 
a  way  out.  You  know  what  I  mean.  Evolution,  and 
all  that.  ...  All  right,  I  haven't  been  reading  books. 
It's  what  I've  been  thinking  for  a  long  time,  and  I  ex- 
pect lots  of  fellows  have  been  thinking  the  same  thing. 
You  have." 

"  Something  like  it." 

"  Well,  it's  as  if  things  were  rushing  away  from  you 
at  about  a  million  miles  an  hour,  and  all  the  things 
you'd  been  told  were  important  turned  out  to  be  nothing 


3o8  PINK  ROSES 


at  all,  and  as  if  when  you  tried  to  play  the  game  accord- 
ing to  the  rules  it  turned  crazy  because  the  game  was  a 
new  game,  and  the  rules  were  old  rules." 

"  Why,  that's  the  war ! "  said  Trevor,  beginning  to 
grasp  what  the  boy  was  driving  at. 

"  That's  it.  We  aren't  playing  the  old  game  any  more. 
Nothing  that  my  father  did  can  ever  be  done  by  me 
because  I'm  a  different  being,  something  quite  new.  So 
are  you.  So  is  Ruth.  I  can  tell  them,  the  new  people, 
as  soon  as  I  see  them,  and  I  can't  make  out  why  the  old 
game  goes  on." 

"  You  see,"  said  Trevor,  "  we  are  not  allowed  to  say 
that  it  is  a  new  game  because  the  old  people  think  we 
want  to  say  that  it  is  better.  But  we  don't  say  anything 
of  the  kind.  We  only  say  that  it's  new.  Whether  it  is 
better  or  not  remains  to  be  proved.  If  we  start  out  with 
a  bigger  truth  you  can  be  sure  that  we  shall  breed  a 
bigger  lie  because  people  will  always  pretend  to  under- 
stand when  they  don't  understand,  and  to  believe  when 
they  don't  believe.  But  the  people  who  are  the  first  to 
play  the  new  game  will  have  a  lovely  time.  And,  I  say, 
about  going  into  the  office,  your  uncle  and  my  father 
were  friends  when  they  were  young,  and  they've 
worked  together  all  their  lives.  I  think  they've  played 
their  old  game  pretty  well.  You've  made  up  my  mind 
for  me,  Leslie.  I'm  going  on  where  they  left  off,  and 
if  you  go  in  too  we  can  play  the  new  game  together." 

"Oh,  I  say!  How  ripping!"  said  Leslie,  his  pale 
cheeks  flushed  with  excitement.  "  You  must  come  again 
when  Ruth  is  at  home.  She  knows,  although  she's  only 
a  girl,  and  wants  everything  tidy  and  precise." 

"  I  hoped  to  see  her  to-day,"  replied  Trevor,  "  but 
I'm  glad  I  found  you  in.  You  must  come  and  see  me, 


TREVOR  AND  LESLIE  309 

too,  and  we'll  make  plans.  By  the  way,  would  you  like 
a  dog?  I've  got  a  fox-terrier  I  want  to  give  away. 
He  has  a  poor  time  cooped  up  in  a  flat  in  the  West 
End;  I'd  like  you  to  have  him." 

Leslie's  eyes  shone. 

"Wouldn't   I   just,"   he  cried.     "Can   I  have  him 

now?" 

Trevor  laughed  and  invited  Leslie  there  and  then  to 
come  back  with  him  and  take  Sydney  away. 


XXI 

RUTH  RETURNS 

RUTH  fled  to  a  quiet  inn  in  the  Chilterns  to  wrestle  with 
herself,  and  to  discover  the  truth  both  of  events  and 
the  persons  involved.  Emotional  battering  at  both  was 
no  good  at  all,  though  it  might  have  been  enjoyable.  It 
could  only  end  in  bitterness.  That  was  her  great  dis- 
covery. In  London,  where  she  could  not  but  be  con- 
centrated upon  persons,  Leslie,  her  father,  Trenham, 
and,  remotely,  Trevor,  she  could  not  weep  and  her 
thoughts  must  move  through  tunnels  hot  as  fire  in  her 
mind.  In  the  country  she  could  relax.  She  was  away 
from  them  all  and  could  grapple  with  events,  and  first 
of  all  she  could  weep  out  her  pain. 

The  country  she  had  chosen  was  perfectly  suitable. 
Fat,  heavy,  dull,  overgrown  with  grass,  monotonous 
with  its  woods  and  meadows  unrelieved  by  water.  Of 
vivid  beauty  there  was -none,  save  now  and  then  in  the 
sky,  but  hedgerows,  lanes,  and  woods  soothed  her  as  she 
wandered  through  them,  and  gradually  she  sank  into 
them  and  was  absorbed  in  their  mood.  Only  then  could 
she  begin  to  think,  and  rather  to  her  surprise  she  found 
herself  facing  squarely  the  facts  as  they  had  been,  re- 
gretting nothing,  blaming  no  one.  indulging  neither  in 
self-pity  nor  self-reproach.  She  remembered  first  of  all 
the  pink  rose  and  the  gladness  in  her  when  she  knew 
that  Trenham  had  taken  it,  and  her  joy  in  his  need  of 

310 


RUTH  RETURNS  311 

her.  She  flinched  from  nothing  then.  There  had  been 
no  vanity  in  it,  none.  Feelings  and  emotions  that  had 
been  suppressed  in  her  had  come  tumbling  out,  clamorous 
as  a  new  spring.  They  were  young,  very  young  emo- 
tions. Ah!  how  lovely  they  had  been,  like  songs,  like 
the  colour  of  spring  buds.  It  was  extraordinary  how 
tenderly  Trenham  had  taken  them,  how  he  had  cherished 
them,  and  terrible  it  was  how  he  had  not  seen  them 
fade,  almost  at  once.  They  ought  never  to  have  been 
given,  never  taken,  but  they  had  surprised  her  with  their 
loveliness,  and  it  had  been  so  sweet  to  have  them  loved. 
In  a  grown  woman  how  could  a  man  know  that  it  was 
only  young  love  flowering  too  late?  Certainly  she 
could  not  blame  Trenham.  He  had  been  more  than  con- 
tent, tragically  happy  he  had  been  with  the  illusion  after 
the  reality  had  faded  at  his  touch,  and  there  had  begun 
that  for  which  she  must  now  suffer.  She  had  allowed 
him  to  worship  the  illusion  without  undeceiving  him. 
She  had  told  herself  that  the  full  flowering  would  come 
— and  it  had  not  come.  For  him  it  had  been  a  great, 
a  triumphant  passion,  for  her  only  the  little  song  of 
young  love.  The  pity  of  it!  For  him  she  could  have 
gone  on  pretending.  Lovers  can  go  on  pretending  for 
ever  that  there  are  only  they  two  in  the  world,  but  Leslie 
had  felt  the  loss  of  truth  in  her,  long  before,  many  days 
before  she  was  aware  of  it  herself,  and  he  had  forced 
her  to  know  what  she  was  doing.  And  then — and  then 
— came  Trevor  with  his  happy,  easy  candour.  And  he 
was  untouched  too.  He  was  as  she  had  been,  innocent, 
childish,  happy  with  the  little  songs  that  flowered  in  his 
heart,  but  possessed  with  a  kind  of  vision  that  made 
him  strong,  and  unable  to  pretend. 

For  hours  she  was  able  to  forget  her  suffering  in  just 


312  PINK  ROSES 


lying  back  and  thinking  of  Trevor.  Something  of 
Harlequin  in  him,  of  Pierrot,  as  though  a  spell  were 
upon  him,  perhaps  a  spell  of  horror — who  knows? — 
some  power  stronger  than  himself  that  made  it  possible 
for  him  to  play  with  life  even  at  its  most  terrible.  Her 
one  meeting  with  him  had  contained  more  life  than  all 
the  rest  of  her  experience.  It  alone,  without  her  own 
honesty  and  courage,  had  made  it  impossible  for  her  to 
go  on  pretending  for  ever.  For  that  other  the  full 
flowering  could  never  be,  never,  because  neither  he  nor 
she  had  waited  for  the  first  pretty  song  to  die  away. 
They  had  lived  on  that  which  was  only  meant  to  charm, 
and  it  had  died.  That  was  something  for  which  all  her 
life  she  must  suffer.  That  she  knew  and  that  she 
bravely  faced,  though  many  tears  were  shed  for  it. 

Worse  was  the  thought  of  Leslie,  and  the  shame  she 
had  unwittingly  had  in  his  torment,  for  nothing  less  than 
that  could  have  made  him  act  so  desperately — so  youth- 
fully too — and  he  was  always  so  old  and  deliberate  in 
his  actions — without  a  word  to  her,  and  without  even 
turning  to  her  for  sympathy.  She  remembered  that  he 
had  been  with  her  when  she  noticed  that  the  pink  rose 
was  gone.  Had  he  turned  from  her  then?  Was  sex  so 
strong  in  a  woman  that  it  could  repel  everything  that 
was  not  part  of  the  immediate  object  of  its  desire?  Was 
that  why  women  always,  always  failed  of  full  accom- 
plishment in  all  other  things?  Here  it  needed  an 
agonized  effort  to  keep  the  thread  of  her  thoughts,  the 
driving  passionate  thought  to  which  she  was  committed. 
Her  sex  throbbed  and  leaped  in  her  in  the  attempt  to 
crush  out  all  other  desires.  And  that  she  would  not 
have.  Not  for  a  moment  would  she  sink  back  into  the 
old  conceptions,  the  idea  of  goodness,  the  notion  of 


RUTH  RETURNS  313 

prayer,  the  strange  antiquated  superstitions  about 
womanhood  which  women  had  accepted  in  their  indul- 
gence for  spoiled  and  humoured  men.  There  was  noth- 
ing evil  in  her  sex,  though  it  was  terrible  in  its  force. 
She  cried  within  herself: 

"  I  will  understand !     I  will  understand ! " 

And  by  sheer  force  of  will  she  controlled  the  power 
in  her  that  wished  to  sweep  all  her  other  faculties  with 
it  and  use  them  to  its  own  ends.  Leslie  must  come  first. 
That  other  could  look  after  himself,  but  Leslie  was  only 
a  child,  and  she  owed  it  to  him  to  nurse  him  into  man- 
hood. The  family's  responsibilities  by  her  mother's 
death  and  her  father's  folly  had  been  thrown  upon  her 
and  she  must  not  fail  in  them,  as  she  had  failed.  .  .  . 
If  she  must  be  sacrificed  she  should  have  accepted  that. 
This  she  knew  was  where  she  had  erred.  A  sudden 
serenity  had  been  offered  to  her  and  she  had  clutched  at 
it.  Young  love  had  sung  in  her,  and  she  had  let  its 
song  be  turned  to  harm. 

That  much  she  made  clear  to  herself,  and  for  days 
she  was  tortured  with  the  thought  of  Leslie  suffering 
because  of  her  inability  to  comprehend.  So  cruel,  so 
stupid,  so  childish  an  error  she  ought  never  to  have  com- 
mitted, and  she  could  only  face  life  again  on  condition 
that  she  understood  all  its  implications. 

Her  paleness,  her  silence  alarmed  the  good  woman  of 
the  inn,  who  prepared  choice  dishes  for  her  and  made 
her  drink  much  new  milk. 

Out  of  doors  in  the  lanes  and  the  woods  she  could 
wander  without  thinking,  lost  in  a  pained  fruitful  brood- 
ing, loathing  the  idea  that  Leslie  should  go  out  into  the 
aw fnl  experience  of  the  war,  not  at  peace  either  with 
her  or  with  himself.  She  thought  of  the  war  rather  as 


3H  PINK  ROSES 


a  condition  into  which  men  passed,  going  out  of  life  to 
face  the  risk  of  never  returning  into  it  again,  for  surely 
the  \var  was  something  beneath  human  consciousness, 
something  that  repelled  every  human  thought  and  neces- 
sitated a  laying  down  of  truth,  a  surrender  of  faith,  an 
acceptance  of  nullity.  To  do  that  a  man,  or  a  boy  for 
that  matter,  must  needs  be  at  peace  or  the  evil  of  the 
war  must  creep  into  his  life  to  destroy  it.  But  what 
could  she  do?  What  could  she  do? 

She  wrote  long  letters  to  Leslie,  but  never  posted 
them.  Beyond  a  certain  degree  of  intimacy  letters  only 
created  misunderstanding,  for  words  written  were  of  no 
avail.  She  needed  to  hold  the  poor  boy  in  her  arms, 
to  kiss  his  lips,  to  stroke  his  hair,  to  let  her  tears  mingle 
with  his,  to  press  her  face  close  to  his  so  that  she  could 
feel  the  heat  of  his  tears  and  to  taste  them — to  share 
his  bitterness,  to  take  it  into  herself,  to  take  all  his  hurt 
and  burn  it  away  with  her  love.  And  often  she  im- 
agined that  she  was  with  him  so,  and  she  cried: 

"  Oh,  Leslie,  Leslie,  my  dear !  .  .  .  I  love  you  so. 
I  didn't  mean  to  hurt  you.  I  was  happy  for  a  little 
while.  It  was  wrong  of  me.  It  was  a  poor  little  hap- 
piness. Forgive  me !  Forgive  me !  " 

But  as  she  imagined  him  he  lay  like  a  stone,  his  young 
face  drawn  and  looking  old  and  terribly  wise,  having 
judged  her. 

She  was  at  her  extremest  suffering  when  she  had  his 
letter  saying  he  had  been  released.  At  first  she  could 
not  believe  it,  but  it  was  in  his  hand  and  was  written 
from  home,  just  a  note  scrawled  impatiently,  and  she 
felt  that  he  was  annoyed  with  her  for  not  being  there 
when  he  arrived.  Once  again  she  had  been  wrong  and 
had  sacrificed  him  to  her  own  emotions,  and,  forgetting 


RUTH  RETURNS 315 

how  hard  her  trial  had  been,  she  called  herself  selfish 
for  having  run  away  into  solitude  to  enjoy  her  agony, 
and  she  began  to  think  a  little  bitterly  of  the  hardship 
of  being  a  woman  and  so  easily  absorbed  in  whatever 
might  be  happening  to  herself,  always,  always  the  per- 
sonal outlook — the  personal  interest.  .  .  .  How  could 
men  be  so  detached,  so  disinterested,  so  quietly  and 
almost  automatically  self-critical?  They  could  laugh  so 
easily  even  when  things  were  at  their  worst,  and  she 
could  only  get  as  far  as  the  desire  to  laugh,  and  the 
perception  that  laughter  was  good  and  clean  and  whole- 
some. She  thought  that  perhaps  it  was  impossible  for 
a  woman  to  stand  alone,  and  that  brought  her  with  a 
sickening  swiftness  to  the  social  aspect  of  what  she  had 
done.  She  had  attempted  to  stand  alone,  to  ignore 
her  own  obligations  and  those  of  the  man  with  whom 
she  had  sung  the  pathetic  song  of  young  love.  .  .  . 
Something  that  she  had  lived  in  contact  with  another 
being,  and  therefore  with  humanity,  must  remain  a 
secret,  always  a  secret,  moving  only  in  secret  through 
her  own  life  in  all  its  years,  and  in  other  lives  not  mov- 
ing at  all,  a  thing  fixed  and  immovable,  an  impediment 
created  by  herself.  The  injury  was  as  definite  as  a 
wound  upon  her  body,  and  she  was  as  conscious  of  it 
as  though  it  had  been  so,  and  then  she  thought  of  all  the 
wounded  who  had  returned  maimed  for  life.  They  bore 
their  afflictions  cheerfully,  and  seemed  to  grow  accus- 
tomed to  them  and  perhaps  she  would  do  so  too.  .  .  . 
Then  she  swung  back  to  the  baffling  idea  of  the  handicap 
under  which  women  live,  and  this  tormented  her  for  a 
long  time  until  inexplicably  she  began  to  laugh.  There 
was  no  occasion  for  it,  unless  it  was  the  sight  of  the 
shining  beech-buds  swinging  against  the  blue  sky  catch- 


316  PINK  ROSES 


ing  the  pale  light  of  the  winter  sun  that  had  no  warmth 
to  bring  them  to  their  bursting  point.  She  was  alone  in 
the  woods.  There  was  not  even  a  bird  in  sight,  though 
far  away  she  could  hear  the  melancholy  cooing  of  wood- 
pigeons,  and  far  up  every  now  and  then  a  hawk  hovered 
and  swung  on  the  wind,  eyeing  the  brown  sea  of  the 
woods  for  its  prey.  The  wind  whispered  through  the 
topmost  twigs  of  the  trees,  and  the  light  sank  into  their 
shadow  as  upon  deep  water,  and  Ruth,  as  she  walked 
deeper  and  deeper  into  the  tangled  wilderness,  felt  that 
she  would  never  return,  since  here  it  did  not  matter  that 
she  was  wounded  because  she  could  be  alone.  And  she 
laughed  with  the  music  of  full  happiness.  A  startled 
fawn  leaped  upon  the  brown  wet  bracken,  stared  at  her, 
and  darted  away,  and  she  longed  to  touch  it,  to  hold  its 
slender  neck  in  her  arms  and  to  stroke  its  tender  throat. 
She  ran  after  it,  the  dear  fawn  that  had  broken  the 
stillness  into  which  she  had  been  sinking.  And  again 
she  laughed  at  the  absurdity  of  that  impulse,  and  as  she 
laughed  she  gained  complete  surrender,  and  accepted 
that  as  she  was  a  woman  she  must  be  personal  in  her 
outlook.  Life  is  through  persons,  and  a  man  takes  his 
risks  lightly  knowing  that  he  can  always  fall  back  upon 
a  woman.  In  the  end  the  whole  burden  falls  upon 
women.  Ruth  accepted  this  exultantly,  for  she  knew  she 
had  reached  the  truth  of  her  own  being.  She  could 
bring  fruitfulness  to  a  man's  soul.  That  was  her  power 
as  a  woman.  Had  she  sacrificed  it?  .  .  .  No.  No. 
No.  She  had  not  given  it,  but  she  had  given  honestly 
all  she  had  to  give. 

She  became  then  fiercely,  passionately  personal,  and 
yielded  to  what  she  had  been  avoiding  all  the  while,  the 
thought  of  Trevor.  Her  impression  of  him  had  been 


RUTH  RETURNS  317 


true.  There  was  in  him  something  untouched,  some- 
thing of  Pierrot  wandering  pale  and  mischievous  outside 
life.  Perhaps  it  was  only  because  he  had  escaped  the 
destiny  of  his  generation.  Perhaps — but  she  could  not 
deal  in  reasons  now.  She  was  certain  of  this  fact.  He 
was  Pierrot  playing  at  life,  amusing  himself  with  that 
woman  of  the  cafe. 

She  retraced  her  footsteps.  Nothing  existed  for  her 
but  Trevor.  She  was  glad  even  that  she  had  been 
wounded,  for  she  had  a  strength  and  a  knowledge  of 
life  which  he  lacked.  It  could  only  be  given  to  him  by 
a  woman  who  knew  her  power.  An  insensible  woman 
or  a  girl  as  untouched  as  himself  could  only  amuse  him, 
only  play  the  Pierrot  game  with  him. 

There  was  not  the  smallest  doubt  in  her  that  what 
she  desired  would  come  to  pass.  She  knew  not  how. 
Within  herself  as  within  him  it  had  happened.  When? 
Long  ago  perhaps.  It  might  be  even  as  long  ago  as  the 
day  when  she  had  passed  him  in  the  darkness  of  her 
uncle's  office,  or  the  day  when  she  had  seen  him  in 
Whitehall,  when  she  wore  the  grey  dress  and  the  pink 
rose  which  that  other  had  stolen.  Or  perhaps  it  had 
sprung  to  life  in  them  as  they  sat  oblivious  of  time  in 
the  chop-house  in  the  City. 

When  she  reached  the  inn  she  found  another  letter 
from  Leslie  telling  her  to  come  home  at  once.  Trevor 
had  been  to  see  him,  and  had  given  him  a  dog. 

Ruth  kissed  his  letter,  fondled  it,  read  it  over  and 
over  again.  The  news  was  what  she  had  longed  for. 
That  those  two  should  be  friends  was  already  a  fulfil- 
ment: Leslie  and  Trevor.  .  .  .Oh!  what  could  they 
not  be  to  each  other  and  what  could  she  not  make  of  the 
two  of  them,  both  young,  both  saved  from  the  terrible 


318  PINK  ROSES 


fate  of  the  young  to  help  in  the  task  of  achieving  the 
hopes  and  dreams  of  those  who  were  gone. 

When  she  returned  Leslie  met  her  at  the  station  with 
Sydney,  from  whom  he  would  not  part  for  a  moment, 
not  only  because  Sydney  was  a  dog,  but  because  he  was 
Trevor's  dog. 

"  This  is  my  dog,"  said  Leslie  proudly,  and  that  was 
all  Ruth  wanted  him  to  say,  for  he  was  a  boy  again, 
utterly  forgetful  that  he  had  ever  had  a  trouble  or  a 
tortured  thought  too  strong  for  his  young  mind  or  an 
emotion  too  great  for  his  boyish  soul. 

But  Sydney  was  suspicious  of  her.  The  only  woman 
he  had  known  was  Cora  Dinmont,  and  her  he  hated. 
He  crouched  away  behind  Leslie's  legs,  and  cocked  an 
appraising  eye  at  her. 

"You  were  a  silly  ass  to  go  away,"  said  Leslie. 
"  Trevor  came  to  see  you,  but  he's  my  friend  now." 


XXII 
THE  PARTY 

THE  meeting  with  Leslie  had  shocked  Trevor  also  into 
facing  facts,  and  an  admission  that  he  had  never  had 
the  smallest  real  intention  of  not  taking  up  the  life  for 
which  he  was  designed  by  birth,  tradition,  and  circum- 
stance. Hardman's  doctrine  of  inspired  folly  was  all 
very  well,  but  it  was  only  tolerable  on  condition  that  it 
should  emerge  from  life  solidly  based,  organized,  and 
ordered.  Perhaps  Hardman  had  understood  that,  per- 
haps if  he  had  lived  he  would  have  been  more  explicit 
about  it,  though  probably  he  would  have  done  something 
perfectly  crazy  which  nobody  would  have  understood 
just  to  prevent  people  taking  him  seriously. 

"  You  know,  Trevor,"  Hardman  had  said  once,  "  you 
take  me  much  too  seriously.  Everybody  does.  It  is 
the  old  habit  of  turning  persons  into  dogmas.  It 
doesn't  work  nowadays.  They  tried  it  with  poor  old 
Meredith,  but  it  didn't  work.  It  doesn't  work.  It  only 
turns  them  into  a  juju.  Look  at  the  Kaiser  and 
Kitchener." 

How  sound  Hardman  had  been!  Trevor,  trying  to 
live  up  to  him,  felt  like  an  undertaker  asked  to  organize 
a  wedding.  His  funeral  carriages  could  be  decorated 
with  white  flowers  and  ribbons;  but  what  the  devil  was 
he  to  do  about  the  black  horses.  Oh  well !  The  party 
was  the  best  he  could  do.  He  would  steer  Cora  and 

319 


320  PINK  ROSES 


Sophina  into  the  theatre,  and  then  when  the  last  of  his 
year  came,  he  would  return  to  the  North  and  keep  in 
touch  with  them  and  Mr.  Angel  and  Mr.  Ysnaga,  be- 
cause there  was  never  any  knowing  what  might  come 
out  of  it  all.  And  there  would  be  Leslie  to  steer 
through.  Oh  yes,  on  the  whole  things  had  turned  out 
very  well,  very  well. 

The  agony  of  the  war,  which  had  reached  its  bitterest 
intensity  at  the  turn  of  the  Dardanelles,  broke  with  the 
Russian  Revolution.  Every  fibre  of  Trevor's  being 
kindled  to  that  bursting  of  the  spring  of  human  hope, 
and  leaped  into  flame.  The  event  was  all  the  greater 
for  being  anonymous.  No  great  name  came  out  of  it, 
because  it  was  too  immense  an  uprising  of  the  human 
spirit  for  any  ambitious  fool  to  turn  it  to  his  own  ac- 
count. Trevor  understood  it  very  well.  The  human 
spirit  had  flamed  forth  at  its  only  outlet.  Everywhere 
else  it  was  cramped  and  confined  by  the  mechanical 
organization  of  life.  Only  in  Russia,  still  feudal,  still 
hundreds  of  years  behind  the  times,  could  it  effectively 
assert  itself,  and  it  had  done  so.  That  was  the  cardinal 
fact.  It  had  made  plain  for  all  the  world  to  see,  even 
through  the  smoke  and  the  fumes  of  war,  the  spirit  of 
the  young,  that  which  sustains,  guides,  and  leads  hu- 
manity and  drives  it  ever  on  in  pursuit  of  the  unat- 
tainable. 

For  days  after  the  splendid  news  Trevor's  life  was 
one  long  chant  of  pure  idealism.  He  knew  that  it  did 
not  matter  now  what  happened.  The  truth  had  been 
uttered  in  the  vast  gesture  in  the  East,  and  the  West 
might  go  on  mechanically  denying  it  as  it  had  been  doing 
for  a  whole  generation  before  the  moment  of  utterance, 
but  in  the  end  to  that  truth  it  must  come.  Life, 


THE  PARTY  321 


treasure,  youth,  honour,  all  human  things  may  be 
thrown  away,  but  the  march  of  truth  is  irresistible. 
Above  all,  thought  Trevor,  there  was  no  hurry.  There 
was  time,  there  was  room  for  everything.  And  as 
the  paean  of  his  idealism  sank  back  into  his  soul  he 
moved  about  in  the  very  spirit  of  Harlequin,  touching 
doors  which  did  not  open,  stirring  up  people  who  only 
laughed  at  him,  but  happily  and  indulgently.  How 
easily  he  could  have  turned  the  material  in  his  hands 
into  a  commonplace  success.  He  had  Hardman's  fame, 
Angel's  millions,  Ysnaga's  cunning,  but  he  refused  to 
exploit  any  of  these  things.  He  preferred  to  bide  his 
time  until  there  were  more  like  himself  and  Leslie,  who 
knew  that  the  long  awaited  new  life  had  begun  to  blos- 
som in  the  souls  of  men. 

The  great  case  was  opened  at  the  Law  Courts.  He 
had  never  arrived  at  any  real  grasp  of  its  detail,  but  he 
understood  that  it  was  a  very  important  affair — to  Mr. 
Barnes  an  infinitely  greater  thing  than  the  Russian  Revo- 
lution— because  it  would  take  six  weeks,  and  there  were 
five  counsel  on  either  side,  with  the  leaders'  briefs 
marked  five  thousand  guineas.  Mr.  Barnes  hummed  and 
buzzed  with  excitement.  Trevor  went  to  Court  with 
him,  and  there,  sitting  in  the  well  of  the  Court,  was  Mr. 
Ysnaga,  looking  very  bored.  At  the  sight  of  him  Mr. 
Barnes  showed  his  teeth  and  was  as  frenzied  with  excite- 
ment as  a  chained  terrier  watching  a  rat  run  down  a 
yard. 

"I've  subpoenaed  him,"  he  said.  'The  dirty  pup. 
I'll  get  him  for  perjury  this  time.  Last  time  I  got  him 
on  false  pretences.  That's  him.  He's  at  the  bottom 
of  this  affair.  Would  you  believe  it,  they're  so  certain 
of  winning  this  case  that  they've  already  sol'd  acres  and 


322  PINK  ROSES 


acres  of  land  although  it  doesn't  belong  to  them,  and 
eight  or  nine  companies  floated  on  the  strength  of  it 
and  not  a  penny  has  any  one  ever  seen  of  their  money, 
and  we've  got  to  prove  that  they  have  no  title." 

Trevor  sat  listening  sleepily  to  the  opening  of  the 
case,  marvelling  at  the  extraordinary  procedure,  with 
its  muffled  solemnity,  its  archaic  phraseology,  its  deadly 
slowness,  with  the  judge  nodding  on  the  bench,  silks 
and  juniors  lying  back  gazing  up  at  the  ceiling,  the  few 
people  in  Court  trying  vainly  to  catch  what  was  being 
said.  And  after  a  time  he  could  not  bear  it  any  longer, 
made  excuses  and  walked  away.  As  he  passed  through 
the  closed  door  he  caught  Mr.  Ysnaga's  eye  slanting  in 
his  direction  in  a  kind  of  wink,  and  out  in  the  corridor 
he  met  Mr.  Ysnaga,  who  had  slipped  out  from  the  other 
side  of  the  Court. 

"  Bit  of  a  surprise  to  see  you  here,"  said  Mr.  Ysnaga. 

"  Oh  I  it's  our  great  case,"  replied  Trevor.  "  We  live 
on  it." 

"  I  used  to,"  said  Mr.  Ysnaga,  "  but  it's  about  finished 
as  far  as  I'm  concerned.  They've  subpoenaed  me  out 
of  spite.  It  doesn't  look  like  any  witnesses  to-day 
though.  It's  got  nothing  to  do  with  me.  I've 
sold  out  of  the  City.  Dear  old  West  End  for  me, 
what?" 

"Is  Mr.  Angel  in  it?" 

"  Yes.  He's  having  a  go  at  it  now.  He'd  like  to  own 
a  gold  mine  (5r  two,  but  I've  always  said  that  nothing 
but  a  war  on  the  damned  niggers  will  settle  it.  It's 
the  same  old  story.  As  long  as  the  niggers  are  there 
appealing  to  the  Government  you  get  two  sets  of  people 
squabbling,  because  they  both  hope  to  get  the  goods  for 
nothing.  Chase  'em  out  and  they'll  come  to  terms." 


THE  PARTY  323 


Trevor  was  charmed  by  the  contrast  between  this 
trivial  commercialism  and  the  glowing  ideals  that  be- 
cause of  the  Russian  Revolution  possessed  his  own 
mind.  He  felt  affectionate  even  towards  Mr.  Ysnaga 
and  said : 

"How's  the  show?" 

"  Tip-top.  That  Russian  girl  you  brought  me  is  some 
dancer.  You  should  see  her  and  old  Cora  glaring  at 
each  other's  hair.  There'll  be  trouble  one  of  these  days. 
By  the  way,  you  wouldn't  care  to  go  on  the  films  ?  The 
Government's  spending  a  lot  of  money  on  it  now,  and 
you've  got  just  the  face  for  it." 

"No,  thanks." 

"  There's  heaps  of  money  in  it,"  said  Mr.  Ysnaga, 
wistfully. 

"I'll  stick  to  the  law,"  replied  Trevor.  "I'll  come 
and  see  you  cross-examined,  and  don't  forget  my 
party." 

Mr.  Ysnaga  took  a  taxi  to  the  theatre,  and  Trevor 
went  down  to  Westminster  to  take  Leslie  out  to  lunch, 
as  he  had  fallen  into  the  habit  of  doing  two  or  three 
times  a  week. 

"  I  promised  I'd  call  for  Ruth,"  said  Leslie.  "  She's 
just  gone  back  to  the  Ministry.  She's  been  to  see  my 
uncle  about  me,  and  I'm  to  go  to  Cambridge  if  I'm  still 
unfit  when  I'm  eighteen  and  then  I'm  to  go  into  the 
office.  And  my  uncle  has  been  to  see  father  and  was 
awfully  decent.  He  thinks  no  end  of  you." 

This  was  news  to  Trevor,  who  had  been  under  the 
impression  that  Mr.  Hobday  on  the  whole  disliked  him. 
They  called  for  Ruth,  who  came  down  looking  very 
tired,  though  she  forgot  that  at  once  in  the  joy  of  seeing 
them  together  for  the  first  time. 


324  PINK  ROSES 


"  I  miss  Sophina,"  she  said,  "  though  I  see  her  some- 
times. She  always  talks  of  you,  and  likes  Leslie." 

"  Oh,  shut  up ! "  said  Leslie. 

"  I've  just  heard  that  she  is  a  great  success,"  remarked 
Trevor.  "Of  course  she  would  be,  out  of  sheer  ambi- 
tion." 

"  She's  had  a  hard  time,"  said  Ruth  kindly,  and 
Trevor  ruminating,  replied : 

"  Oh,  we've  all  had  that,"  and  his  eyes  added : 

"Even  you." 

They  lunched  at  a  popular  restaurant  in  Victoria 
Street,  and  Trevor,  wanting  to  share  everything  with 
them,  was  torn  with  a  desire  to  ask  them  to  his  party 
but  he  could  not  bring  himself  to  mention  it,  and  casting 
beyond  it,  he  said: 

"  In  the  summer  I  want  to  take  Leslie  up  North  with 
me.  We  have  a  house  in  the  Lakes,  looking  down  on 
Coniston.  You'd  love  it,  and  I  want  you  both  to  meet 
my  mother.  She  understands  young  people.  She  has 
lived  her  life  and  has  kept  an  inexhaustible  store  in 
reserve.  Very  English.  Don't  you  think  that's  what 
we  want?  We've  had  enough  of  being  British.  It 
means  nothing — just  Jews  and  money  and  patent  medi- 
cines and  Sunlight  Soap  ..." 

Ruth  said: 

"Your  home  must  be  .  .  ."  She  could  not  say 
what.  Only  she  wanted  to  speak  the  word  home  in  con- 
nection with  him,  the  rare  thing  and  the  rare  man 
together. 

"  I've  been  to  the  Law  Courts  this  morning,"  he  said. 
"  There's  a  dead  place  for  you.  And  the  case  I  was 
listening  to  has  been  going  on  for  nearly  thirty  years, 
since  before  I  was  born.  .  .  .  Leslie  will  cut  his 


THE  PARTY  325 


lawyer's  teeth  on  it  and  it  will  go  on,  and  there'll  be 
another  like  it  when  his  son  goes  into  the  firm.  One 
can't  be  revolutionary  in  the  face  of  that." 

Ruth  enjoyed  his  mood  of  whimsical  resignation.  It 
was  so  exactly  right  for  him. 

"  I  mean,"  he  said,  "  that  is  the  real  solid  thing  that 
is  going  on  all  the  time,  and  it  does  somehow  prevent 
the  rogues  and  the  dear  bourgeois  innocents  who  want 
their  ten  per  cent,  from  having  things  all  their  own  way. 
That  and  our  folly  make  us  what  we  are.  We  can  get 
along  without  revolutions." 

Leslie  drank  in  his  hero's  words.  He  could  hardly 
bear  the  excitement  roused  in  him  at  the  prospect  of 
spending  the  holidays  in  the  Lakes  in  Trevor's  own 
house  with  Trevor's  own  people  and  Trevor's  own 
fishing-rods  and  guns.  And  the  thought  of  it  for 
Trevor  had  focussed  all  the  strange  events  of  this  year 
in  which  he  had  passed  through  more  than  was  given 
to  most  men  in  a  lifetime:  nothing  great,  nothing 
heroic,  but  just  life  tortured  into  truth,  and  out  of 
it  all  he  had  won  two  persons,  these  two,  Ruth  and 
Leslie,  who  would  be  to  him  far  more  than  Hardman 
and  Peto  had  been  or  could  ever  have  been.  Those 
two  would  have  gone  their  ways,  but  these  would  remain 
with  him.  He  knew  that — always,  and  he  was  rich 
indeed.  Decidedly  it  would  be  wrong  to  ask  them  to 
the  party. 

So  it  was  to  be  a  farewell  party.  He  could  leave  the 
charming,  fantastic  figures  of  London  grouped  round  the 
first  Jewish  V.C.  in  the  British  Navy.  At  the  thought 
of  it  he  laughed  outright.  He  could  promote  Cherryman 
into  being  Mr.  Angel's  English  gentleman,  who  should 
show  him  how  to  spend  his  money,  and  Carline  could  be 


326  PINK  ROSES 


left  with  his  dreams  of  being  an  English  Kerensky, 
Lenin,  and  Trotzky  rolled  into  one,  or,  failing  that,  he 
could  be  transferred  to  the  Ministry  of  Information — 
his  most  probable  destiny — as  an  authority  on  Russian 
affairs.  He  could  not  refrain  from  laughing. 

"What's  the  joke?"  asked  Ruth. 

"  Pink  roses,"  replied  he :  and  she  was  for  a  moment 
alarmed.  "  I  mean,"  he  added,  "  that  it  has  turned  out 
all  right.  One  always  knows  long  before  things  actually 
happen  whether  they  are  going  to  turn  out  well  or  ill. 
I'll  tell  you  about  it  some  time.  But  it  began  with  pink 
roses  in  the  Park,  and — and  they've  all  steered  their  way 
into  the  music-hall,  which  is  the  appointed  end  of  every- 
thing in  modern  England — music-hall  government, 
music-hall  newspapers,  music-hall  art,  music-hall  finance. 
Nothing  is  left  except  the  Law  Courts  and  the  Trade 
Unions.  They  will  fight  it  out  between  them,  and  you 
and  I  and  Leslie  will  run  away  with  the  bone." 

"  But  who  is  ending  in  the  music-hall  ?  "  asked  Leslie, 
puzzled  and  well  out  of  his  depth. 

"  Sophina,"  said  Trevor.  He  caught  Ruth's  eye,  and 
they  both  laughed  merrily. 

"  It's  all  right,  Leslie,"  said  Trevor  reassuringly,  for 
Leslie  thought  they  were  laughing  at  him.  "  It  is  all  as 
old  as  the  hills.  There's  nothing  new  in  it.  Life  repeats 
itself,  and  the  young  people  have  the  best  of  it  in  the 
end,  but  this  time  even  the  old  people  are  going  to 
realize  it :  because  they  have  gone  too  far  and  we  are  not 
going  to  raise  a  finger  to  get  them  out  of  their  mess. 
The  young  have  always  been  too  sorry  for  the  old,  and 
the  old  have  taken  advantage  of  it  .  .  ." 

"That's  father!"  said  Leslie. 

"  Trenham !  "   thought  Ruth,  and  looking  across  at 


THE  PARTY  327 


Trevor  she  wondered  if  he  knew  and  if  she  would  be 
spared  the  pain  of  telling  him.  It  would  be  just  like  him 
to  have  understood  perfectly,  so  that  there  was  no  need 
to  do  anything  but  let  the  past  slip  away  with  all  the 
remains  of  the  old  world  that  were  being  swept  down 
at  such  a  dizzy  rate  on  the  backward  current  of  time. 
And  she  understood  him  perfectly.  He  was  telling  her 
that  the  woman  of  the  cafe  had  been  nothing  but  a  fan- 
tastic yet  fruitful  experience,  and  that  he  was  in  no  way 
personally  bound  to  her. 

"  We  must  all  go  to  see  Sophina  dance,"  he  said. 

"Of  course,"  answered  Ruth,  getting  up  to  go. 

"  Will  she  be  a  success  ?  " 

"  The  greatest  possible.  Her  pearls  and  her  diamonds 
will  be  fabulous,  and  she  will  squander  more  in  her  life- 
time than  would  restore  the  whole  of  Belgium,  and  she 
will  be  applauded  for  it,  and  quite  rightly." 

Trevor  and  Leslie  escorted  Ruth  back  to  the  Min- 
istry, and  then  slipped  behind  the  Abbey  through  Dean's 
Yard  to  the  school.  That  was  a  little  corner  of  London 
untouched  by  the  music-hall  spirit.  It  would  remain  and 
its  power  would  be  effective  long  after  the  din  of  the 
scramble  for  novelty  had  died  away,  because  the  seeds  of 
destiny  ripen  slowly.  They  are  planted  far  back  in  the 
ages  and  mankind — even  twentieth-century  mankind- 
must  Jive  by  its  fruits.  Leslie  was  aching  to  hear  what 
Trevor  thought  of  Ruth,  and  he  trembled  with  delight 
when  his  friend  said : 

"I  shan't  let  you  come  to  stay  without  your  sister. 
She's — well  .  .  .  There's  no  one  quite  like  her,  is 
there?" 

On  the  day  of  the  party  the  evening  papers  were  full 
of  the  cross-examination  of  Mr.  Ysnaga,  who  had  given 


328  PINK  ROSES 


evidence  on  subpoena  in  the  great  African  case.  In  the 
first  place  he  spoke  German;  in  the  second  he  had  traded 
with  Germany  before  the  war;  in  the  third  he  had  acted 
as  agent  of  a  German  Metallurgical  concern;  in  the 
fourth  he  had  been  in  prison  in  South  Africa,  in  Eng- 
land, in  America;  in  the  fifth But  there  is  no  need 

to  peruse  the  chapters  of  Mr.  Ysnaga's  misadventures. 
He  had  always  been  in  prison  for  business,  never  for 
anything  that  touched  his  personal  and  private  honour. 
He  stood  forth  before  the  world  and  his  own  conscience 
an  honest  Jew,  and  he  got  what  he  wanted  out  of  Mr. 
Barnes's  subpoena:  an  advertsement  for  himself  as  an 
impresario,  and  all  the  arts  of  leading  counsel  could  not 
trip  him  into  perjury.  He  blandly  admitted  all  the 
charges  brought  against  him  and  the  part  he  had  played 
in  the  complicated  history  of  the  African  Edmonton 
Lands  Company.  Mr.  Barnes  of  Hobdays  had  shot  his 
bolt.  There  was  no  one  else  whom  he  could  touch. 
The  case  was  as  good  as  lost :  though  that  meant  nothing, 
as  there  would  be  an  appeal. 

Trevor  had  listened  to  the  proceedings,  and  was  filled 
with  admiration  of  Mr.  Ysnaga,  who  brushed  aside  all 
insinuations  with  "  Before  the  war."  That  was  before 
the  war.  He  was  now  a  patriot  making  khaki  and 
supplying  Government  films,  with  a  share  in  a  munitions 
factory  and  a  large  holding  in  War  Bonds.  To  attack 
such  patriotism  with  old  and  stale  accusations  seemed 
nothing  short  of  dastardly,  and  Mr.  Ysnaga  slipped 
down  from  the  witness-box  smiling  blandly,  having 
Napoleonically  turned  defeat  into  triumph. 

Trevor  thought  that  his  would  be  something  like  a 
party  with  Mr.  Ysnaga  and  the  Jewish  V.C.  as  its  lions. 
No  duchess  in  pre-war  days  had  done  better  than  that. 


THE  PARTY  329 


He  had  decided  to  throw  open  both  the  flats,  and  he 
filled  both  with  artificial  pink  roses,  wonderfully  imitated 
and  scented.  Mr.  Angel  sent  him  two  silken  Union  Jacks 
from  his  factory  with  which  to  strike  the  patriotic  note, 
and  Cora  borrowed  some  brilliant  draperies  from  the 
theatre  wardrobe.  A  piano  was  hired;  also  gleaming 
cutlery  and  napery. 

Even  though  the  two  flats  were  thrown  open  there 
was  hardly  room  enough,  for  Cherryman  had  sniffed 
both  money  and  success:  the  beginning  perhaps  of  a  new 
Society,  and  had  informed  every  one  of  his  enormous 
acquaintance  of  the  gathering.  The  guardsmen  were 
there:  the  poets,  the  long-haired,  bearded  men  from 
Bloomsbury,  the  short-haired  girls  from  the  Slade, 
painters  in  khaki,  commissioned  to  paint  war  pictures, 
young  ladies  who  organized  for  charities,  elegant  young 
men  who  organized  Imperialism  for  the  Round  Table, 
and  deliberately  shabby  young  men  who  did  the  same 
for  democracy,  for  the  I.L.P.,  and  the  Radical  Group. 
Imagistes,  American  poetasters,  derelicts  from  the  Cafe 
Royal,  all  kinds  of  people  credible  and  incredible:  come- 
dians and  chorus  ladies  from  the  theatre:  Cherryman, 
Carline,  adoring  Troshky  (as  he  called  him)  and  all 
agog  for  the  further  triumph  of  Sophina  Solomonovna. 
Mr.  Ysnaga  and  Mr.  Angel  were  there.  (They  had  a 
long  consultation  with  counsel  after  the  day  in  Court.) 
Because  they  were  late  and  the  patriotic  note  could  not 
be  sounded  without  them,  the  ball  was  set  rolling 
by  a  young  lady  from  the  theatre  singing  her  song 
from  the  new  revue,  and  after  that  Sophina  was  to 
dance. 

She  had  gathered  confidence  in  the  theatre,  knew 
exactly  what  she  could  do,  and  made  no  attempt  to  go 


330  PINK  ROSES 


beyond  her  capacity.  Every  one  applauded  her  except 
Cora,  who  glared  at  her,  suspecting  her  of  designs  upon 
Trevor.  She  knew  Soptiina  for  what  she  was,  the  push- 
ing little  Jewess:  too  clever  by  half  for  any  Christian 
woman.  And  Cora  suffered,  too,  because  she  had  no 
accomplishments.  She  showed  as  much  of  her  back  as 
she  could,  but  no  one  took  any  notice  of  it.  It  needed 
the  limelight.  But  in  spite  of  these  mortifications  Cora 
enjoyed  her  party.  It  was  the  beginning  of  things  un- 
dreamed of  only  a  year  ago  when  she  was  living  in 
Gerrard  Street  with  Estelle,  and  Estelle  too  loved  the 
party,  with  a  lot  of  rich  men  and  clever  women,  though 
she  strongly  disapproved  of  the  artistic  and  intellectual 
element  introduced  by  Cherryman.  They  were  neither 
one  thing  nor  the  other — according  to  Estelle,  neither 
rich  nor  on  the  game.  She  regarded  them  as  nonde- 
script and  somehow  indecent:  rather  what  she  had  al- 
ways suspected  Trevor  of  being. 

He,  for  his  part,  revelled  in  the  party,  though  he 
longed  for  Mr.  Angel  and  Mr.  Ysnaga  to  come  to  give 
it  the  patriotic  finishing  touch.  How  Hardman  would 
have  loved  it!  What  jokes  he  would  have  invented! 
What  legs  he  would  have  pulled,  metaphorically  and  in 
fact!  How  he  would  have  delighted  in  introducing  the 
young  man  who  talked  of  Chinese  poetry  and  nothing 
else  to  Cora!  Trevor  did  that.  Dear  old  Cora,  with 
her  Jews  and  her  money  and  her  bare  back,  she  could 
be  happy  anywhere!  Since  she  had  gone  into  the 
theatre  she  had  lost  her  old  restless  jealousy,  and  she 
seemed  to  accept  that  she  was  losing  him  and  that  every 
day  brought  her  nearer  to  the  end. 

"  Let  me  introduce  you,"  said  Trevor.  "  Miss  Cora 
Dinmont — Mr.  Twemlow,  who  knows  all  about  the 


THE  PARTY  331 


Chinese  aristocracy."  And  as  he  moved  away  he  heard 
Mr.  Twemlow  saying: 

"  There  has  never  been  anything  like  it :  the  perfection 
of  aristocracy  in  China  is  the  great  period  ..." 

And  at  the  other  end  of  the  room  was  Sophina  danc- 
ing with  a  Jewish  gusto  which  might  well  pass  for  Rus- 
sian barbarism,  and  just  at  that  moment,  timed  to 
perfection,  Mr.  Angel  and  Mr.  Ysnaga  arrived  in 
eveningdress  accompanied  by  the  first  Jewish  V.C.  in 
the  uniform  of  a  Lieutenant  R.N.V.R.  The  music  went 
on.  Sophina  danced. 

"  Ach !  Trevor !  Dare  you  are !  "  said  Mr.  Angel  in 
his  thickest  accent.  "  Here  he  is !  De  first  Jew 
to  vin  de  V.C.  in  de  Navy.  Tell  him  vere  it  vos, 

poy." 

The  Jewish  V.C.,  a  slight,  simple-looking  young  man, 
glanced  furtively  from  side  to  side.  He  seemed  op- 
pressed by  the  society  in  which  he  found  himself,  and 
yet,  Trevor  thought,  familiar  enough  with  it. 

"  It  was  in  a  scrap  off  the  Dogger  Bank." 

"Submarines!"  said  Mr.  Angel,  with  a  juicily 
rolled  "  r." 

"  Yes.  Submarines.  It  was  dirty  weather,  and  we'd 
been  on  patrol  ..."  He  muttered  so  that  he  was 
hardly  audible,  when  suddenly  there  was  a  shriek : 

"Finberg!" 

And  through  the  crowded  room,  almost  in  one  bound, 
came  Sophina. 

"  Finberg !    You  dirty  sneak !  " 

With  one  hand  she  seized  him  by  the  collar  and  tore 
it  open  and  wrenched  off  his  black  tie,  and  with  the 
other  she  pulled  his  hair  and  shook  his  head  until  it 
seemed  it  must  surely  part  from  his  body.  Nobody 


332  PINK  ROSES 


moved.     Nobody  attempted  to  rescue  the  hero.     Only 
Mr.  Angel  said  falteringly: 

"Finberg?" 

Trevor  turned  to  Cherryman,  and  said: 

"Is  it  Finberg?" 

"  Yes,"  answered  Cherryman.     "  That's  Finberg." 

Mr.  Ysnaga  cried : 

"  You  said  your  name  was  Solomon." 

But  Finberg  was  not  in  a  condition  to  deal  with  the 
situation. 

"  He's  had  two  hundred  of  my  money ! "  said  Mr. 
'Angel. 

Mr.  Ysnaga  slipped  out. 

"  Yes,"  said  Sophina,  "  Finberg's  his  name,  a  dirty 
swindling  Yid  who  crawled  out  of  the  East  End 
to  write  poetry.  You  ask  him  if  he  knows  Spital 
Square." 

"  Oh !  shut  up,  Phina,"  said  Finberg,  hanging  his 
head. 

"  If  you  ask  me,"  she  screamed,  "  he's  a  deserter  from 
the  Army." 

Trevor  tried  to  lead  her  away. 

"  That's  all  right,"  said  Finberg,  turning  to  Mr. 
Angel.  "  She  used  to  live  with  me.  Her  name's 
Lipinsky.  You  probably  know  her  father." 

Trevor  said  to  Finberg: 

"  Better  get  out !  " 

And  the  unlucky  hero  tried  to  slip  away,  but  as  he 
reached  the  door  Mr.  Ysnaga  arrived  with  two  police- 
men, and  Finberg  was  led  away.  Mr.  Angel  was  nearly 
weeping. 

"  Vy  did  you  do  dat,  Mr.  Ysnaga?  I  don't  vant  to 
charge  him." 


THE  PARTY  333 


"He's  a  dirty  rotter!"  said  Sophina,  her  eyes  still 
blazing. 

For  the  rest  the  incident  had  passed,  and  the  Jews 
were  left  to  themselves. 

"  He's  a  dirty  rotter,"  she  said.  "  I  knew  he'd  end 
like  that.  If  it  hadn't  been  for  him  I'd  never  have 
quarrelled  with  my  father." 

"  Is  it  Solomon  Lipinsky  ?  "  asked  Mr.  Angel. 

Sophina  bowed  her  head. 

"  He  quarrels  with  a  good  girl  like  you  ?  Ach !  Kom. 
Kom.  Aus  min  haus  heraus,  eh  ?  .  .  .  Schade !  " 

The  explosion  had  had  the  effect  of  sorting  the 
guests.  The  theatricals  drifted  across  to  Cora's  flat:  the 
intellectuals  stayed  in  Trevor's,  and  both  enjoyed  them- 
selves according  to  their  lights,  but  no  one  enjoyed  the 
party  as  much  as  their  host.  ...  It  was  good-bye, 
good-bye.  He  knew  now  which  way  he  was  going. 
.  .  .  Pink  roses  no  more.  That  enchantment  was 
broken,  as  also  was  the  desire  to  work  marvels  with  the 
magic  word  "  million."  That  was  for  the  mob  and 
their  masters.  For  the  individuals  who  emerged  there 
was  life  which  no  enchantment  could  attain,  no  magic 
transmogrify.  And  life  was  simple.  Life  for  a  man 
was  contained  in  his  friend  and  his  love,  two  things, 
purity  and  power,  and  for  a  woman — this  was  the  truth 
he  had  learned  from  Ruth's  eyes — life  was  conception, 
first  of  her  man,  then  of  her  child. 

Trevor  laughed.  Ah !  how  happy  he  was !  He  would 
slip  away  soon,  leaving  them  all  in  their  music-hall. 
...  In  his  flat  silence  had  been  obtained  while  Mr. 
Twemlow  read  a  Chinese  lyric  of  six  lines.  From  Cora's 
,  flat  came  the  strains  of  an  American  war-song.  .  .  . 
Trevor  stood  in  the  passage,  away  from  both  groups, 


334  PINK  ROSES 


and  thought  of  Coniston  and  a  boat,  Leslie  fishing,  Ruth 
steering,  himself  rowing.  .  .  .  That  was  the  way.  To 
pick  up  old  traditions  and  make  them  new.  Home,  love, 
a  friend.  .  .  .  These  things  led  to  the  unattainable. 
.  .  .  What  friends  Ruth  and  Hardman  would  have 
been.  .  .  .  Oh,  the  pity  of  it!  .  .  .So  much  to 
struggle  through.  ...  So  much  vain  barren  folly. 
What  Hardman  had  meant  was  the  splendid  folly  which 
clings  to  illusions  until  they  become  reality.  That  he 
had  done,  that  he  would  always  do.  .  .  .  The  pink 
roses  of  illusion  had  in  reality  become  a  little  dewy  bud. 
...  So  good-bye,  good-bye,  pink  roses.  .  .  . 

While  the  party  was  in  full  swing  he  stole  away,  got 
into  a  taxi  and  drove  to  the  house  where  he  had  lived 
with  Hardman  and  Peto.  The  old  rooms  were  vacant. 
.  .  .  He  took  them  for  the  next  few  months.  .  .  . 
It  was  useless,  he  knew,  attempting  any  kind  of  explana- 
tion with  Cora.  He  sent  her  a  wire  saying  he  had  been 
called  away,  and  told  himself  he  would  write  to  her. 
He  had  drifted  into  her  existence.  He  would  drift  out 
again.  That  was  what  she  must  have  expected.  .  .  . 
It  was  right  that  it  should  be.  He  had  performed  the 
whole  duty  of  man;  he  had  left  nothing  as  he  found  it. 
Besides,  the  new  life  had  begun,  and  he  wanted  Leslie 
to  come  and  see  him  in  Hardman's  room,  to  sit  as  Hard- 
man used  to  do  on  the  sofa,  throwing  out  his  legs,  hold- 
ing a  cushion  on  his  stomach  and  eating  sweets.  .  .  . 
And  after  that  the  pink  rose-bud  on  the  grey  dress 
with  the  clear  grey  eyes  shining  above  them,  meeting 
one  day  the  grey  eyes  as  clear  that  also  had  loved 
him,  and  had  looked  clean  into  his  soul  and  had  under- 
stood and  trusted  him.  ...  As  his  mother  had 
trusted  him,  so  he  trusted  Ruth,  for  he  knew.  ,.  ...  w 


THE  PARTY  335 


There  was  no  need  for  him  to  be  told,  and  he  trusted 
her.  ..."  Ruth,  Ruth,  there  is  nothing  lost,  nothing, 
nothing.  They  wanted  us  to  live  in  the  old  life,  but  we 
could  not  do  it  because  of  each  other.  .  .  .  Love  has 
to  begin  again  every  time,  at  the  beginning,  in  the  world 
as  it  is  and  as  it  will  be.  ...  Good-bye,  pink  roses, 
good-bye  ..."  And  he  thought  fantastically  of  Mr. 
Ysnaga  and  Sophina  together  dancing  a  Bacchanal,  scat- 
tering rose-leaves  and  treading  them  with  their  tripping 
feet.  .  .  .  Oh  yes.  Mr.  Ysnaga  was  a  wonderful 
man,  a  wonderful  man.  .  .  .  And  presently  another 
young  man  would  come  under  the  spell  of  pink  roses, 
and  Mr.  Ysnaga  would  make  another  leap  forward  in 
wealth  and  power,  and  the  young  man  would  drift 
away.  .  .  .  That  was  the  way  of  the  world.  That 
was  how  the  world  worked.  One  bought  a  dog  without 
meaning  to  buy  it  and  in  the  end  one  was  in  love,  be- 
cause— oh!  because  youth  finds  a  way. 


A     000126479 


